


Originator

by CapLaPorte



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Anticapitalism, F/F, Magic, Quest, Teenage Magic Ninja Prescotts, Three teenage girls steal a bunker, Urban Fantasy, Witches, fae
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2019-11-18 12:16:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 29
Words: 73,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18120656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapLaPorte/pseuds/CapLaPorte
Summary: I'll be publishing this as a mirror to a quest I'm running on the Sufficient Velocity forums under the same name. Chapters will be published here only after voting has already been completed, so if you'd like to have a say in Max's actions, find the quest in the quests subforum on Sufficient Velocity!





	1. 1.1

**Author's Note:**

> Link to the quest thread is here:  
> https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/originator-life-is-strange-urban-fantasy-quest.53811/

**Content Warning** \- Will be updated as necessary, please write if I am missing anything that I should mention.  
Mentions of Suicide  
Occasional Mentions of Abusive Familial Circumstances  
Discussion of drug use and abuse  
Graphic violence

 

≅≅≅

  
You cry out in frustration, the sound lost in the torrential wind whipping your hair and clothes, and fall to your knees. Again.  
  
Tears of anger and impotence and defiance and _exhaustion_ mix with the rainwater that’s already running down your face. Again.  
  
A familiar shock of blue hair catches the edge of your vision as Chloe shouts over the rain. Again.  
  
You could listen, hear it all again. It hurts not to, but it would hurt even more if you did. It doesn’t matter. No, that’s not right. She _does_ matter, but you’ve been through this enough times. You exhale and let the familiar threaded pulse in your right hand permeate your body. Again.  
  
Despite the lashing water that feels like it will pummel you to the ground no matter how strongly you resist, your mouth is dry and dead-feeling, and your throat feels as rough as though you’d just swallowed a mouthful of sawdust.  
  
You force your gaze upwards, eyes stinging painfully as fresh rivulets of rain and seawater flow into them freely, and you offer Chloe your best reassuring smile.  
  
Her face contorts into an expression of confusion, her - _cutely_ \- furrowed brow quickly rises as she catches sight of your hand in your jacket’s pocket. She starts taking long, fast strides back down the hill to you, careful not to lose her balance lest she be slowed further. You find what you had been fumbling for in your pocket- _a picture, laminated, one of many_ \- and lower your gaze to it.  
  
You can scarcely hear Chloe scream for you to stop over the Storm as you concentrate all the threads coming into your body behind your eyes.  
  
On the very edge of your vision, you see her hand reaching to grab the photograph- _too slow again, Chlo_ \- an intense pressure builds at your behest, and your skull feels like it’s ripped from your head as the threads catch and pull you into yourself.  
  
Again.

 

 

≅≅≅

  
Your name is Maxine Caulfield, though you prefer Max. You were born and grew up in Arcadia Bay, Oregon. You can’t keep a physical journal anymore so you talk to yourself while traveling through time and space instead. In April of 2008, you left Arcadia Bay with your parents to move to Seattle. Your best friend’s dad had just died. You didn’t say goodbye, and for five years you did not respond to her calls or texts. Her name is Chloe Price.  
  
In August of 2013 you moved back to Arcadia Bay on your own to attend the Prestigious Blackwell Academy. You did not tell Chloe. On Monday, October 7th of 2013 you watched Chloe Price get shot by _Nathan Prescott_ in a bathroom at Blackwell Academy. On Monday, October 7th, 2013, you gained the ability to rewind time. You used your powers to prevent Chloe from being shot - _killed-_ by Nathan. She later returned the favour when he threatened to beat the shit out of you in the Blackwell parking lot by being your getaway driver. _With some help from Warren too._  
  
Between the days of October 7th, 2013 and October 10th, 2013 you learned to hone your powers.  
You learned you could rewind time up to a minute and a half with minimal effort, and up to five minutes if you _really_ pushed yourself.  
You learned you could travel through time via photos in two distinct ways. A "soft" photojump can be done to any photo you are actively _in._ Your consciousness goes back and inhabits your body at the moment the picture was taken, and you can hang around for about a day before you're sent back to the present. Any changes made in the past _do_ ripple through to the present, so when you get back you're dropped into a reality that's usually somewhat unfamiliar to you.  
The other type of photojump is what you're doing now. A "hard" jump. You can do this to any picture you've taken yourself. Unlike the soft jump, you don't get rubberbanded back to the "present" at any point, the timeline you came from is dead _\- or is it just missing you?-_ and you have the opportunity to try again.  
  
Throughout the week you tried to use your powers to help people. You prevented a friend _\- Kate Marsh_ \- from commiting suicide, you saved Chloe’s life several more times, you caught a murderer, saved a dog’s life, kissed Chloe - _got kissed by Chloe, once-,_ and throughout had dreams - _nightmares-_ of a coming Storm.  
  
They were more than just bad dreams. On Friday, October 11th, the Storm comes to Arcadia Bay, a hurricane. The Storm is your fault. You are sure of that much. It only comes if you stop Chloe from being killed on that first day. It only comes if Chloe dies cold and alone on cool blue bathroom tiles, thinking her mother hates her, thinking she was abandoned by both of her best friends, thinking she was _alone._  
  
You couldn’t accept that. You couldn’t accept it the first time on that wind-battered, rain-pummeled hill by the lighthouse and you couldn’t accept it this time. You have lived the week of October 7th to October 11th, 2013- _you glance at your forearm, at the tallies you always make sure the rain can’t wash away. Thirteen of them-_ fourteen times now.  
  
You feel the threads tearing your skull through the void slackening slightly, you’re almost there. You roll your shoulders and crack your neck, not that doing so will affect your body once you’re in. You mentally review the opening moves. _Hit the fire alarm. Wait for Chloe to leave. Find the sharpie - fourteen tallies. Steal the Principal’s hush money. Head to the tattoo artist and make those tallies as permanent as I can._  
  
You stifle a yawn, you’re reasonably confident you can’t optimize this part any further.  
  
A voice gnaws at the back of your head. _What about when it’s too many tallies to fit on your arms? What about when’s it’s so many tallies that Chloe won’t even recognize you?_  
  
God. You’re hella tired.

 

 

≅≅≅

  
It feels like there’s a weighted blanket over your head. Ugh, no, over your brain really. A whole pile of them. Your consciousness feels faded at the edges and a sense of unease you can’t quite find a reason for is nipping at the frays. A clear thought rises to the top. _Where are you?_ Your eyes shoot open and the bright light makes you squint while they adjust. A… hospital room?  
  
Yes, the overcleaned, sterile air has you sure before you’re even fully awake. Your faculties are slowly returning, but the unease only grows into a tightly knit ball of anxiousness in the pit of your stomach. You look around carefully, head still resting on the cushions propped up against your bed’s headboard. Your neck aches.  
  
There’s an... IV-Drip, you assume? Being fed into your left arm. You decide to leave it be for the moment. Some monitoring equipment attached to the bed, and in turn, your arm. You turn to look at the window when your mind returns in full force.  
  
_WHAT TIME IS IT?_  
  
No clocks on the walls no clocks on the monitoring equipment when are you when are you when are you-  
The heartrate monitor beeps a rapid tempo beside you - _it feels like it’s beeping directly into your skull-_ and despite your muscles protestations and cramps you prop yourself up on your left arm and weakly lift your right-  
And stop. You’re transfixed by what you see on your hand. The flesh on the palm of your hand is blackened, looking scarred or even burned, in the shape of a jagged spiral. Before you can recover and start to search for those familiar threads, the door bursts open to let a pair of concerned looking doctor-y types in.  
  
They freeze, staring at you.  
  
You stare back, wide eyed and frantic.  
  
Your throat muscles feel weak, vocal chords out of practice and no thicker than a paper streamer, but nevertheless you manage to croak something out. “What day is it?”

 

 

≅≅≅

  
You impatiently follow the doctor's instructions while he shines a light in your eyes and taps your knee with a hammer, while the nurse tries to gently get you up to speed. In August, when you and your parents were driving north to the Bay, your family had been the victim of a hit and run incident. You’d all been found unconscious by the side of the road, severely injured, your family’s van a smoking wreck in the thick forest next to you. Your dad had retained consciousness long enough to drag your mom and you from the van before losing consciousness himself. Neither of them have woken up since, and nor had you until now. You process the information as best you can. This was _not_ right. Well. It was the right day, October 7th according to the nurse, but the time?  
  
“What time is it?” You rasp out, your voice still quiet and weak, but clearly tinged by worry as you take in the dimming orangey-yellow hues outside.  
  
The two medical practitioners pause and look at each other. The Doctor shrugs and checks his watch. “Uh, about 5:30.”  
  
Shit.  
  
You choke back a strangled gasp and squeeze your eyes shut to fight back the tears that threaten to brim in them. Your mind is racing, dozens of possibilities and variables and potentials and maybes and what ifs flood your still foggy psyche.  
  
They all come to one conclusion, the same conclusion, all at once, and it feels like the force of a speeding truck careening into your whole body.  
  
Your eyes drift open, staring blankly into the middle distance, and your overtense body unravels, slouching you into the bed.  
  
The Doctor says something about getting some rest while they review your case. You barely register him.  
  
You can’t save Chloe.  
  
_Ever._  
  
If you’re not in that bathroom not only can you not pull the fire alarm.  
  
_You can’t get your anchor picture for the photojump._

 

 

  
≅≅≅

  
You’re not sure how long you’ve been laying here. A despair like a vacuum trying to fill itself with every part of your mind feels lodged in your throat, keeping your eyes open and body unmoving. How can you have failed? What went wrong? Why didn’t it _work properly?_  
  
The cloying smell of antiseptic in the air feels like it’s coated your nasal passage all the way down to your throat. It’s nauseating. You blink once. Twice. Curl each hand into a fist, the uncurl them. Close your mouth and try to make it feel less dry. _Baby steps._  
  
You’re going to need to do a rewind. The longest you’ve ever done. Even the thought of it in your current state makes you reflexively twitch in expected pain. If you can just get back to right when you woke up, maybe-  
Movement at the edge of your vision interrupts your thoughts. Not to your left, where the door is, but to the windowsill on your right. To a pair of potted plants there.  
  
Two flowering plants. Purple, as best you can tell from the moonlight outside. But that was the rub. If that’s moonlight outside, _why are their triangular leaves and flower blooms opening u-_  
  
“Hey.” You jump and swing your head over to your left at the sudden vocal intrusion.  
  
There’s a woman sitting on the chair next to your bed. And you didn’t hear the door open or see the light from the hall. Oh, and also she appears to be lit by sources of light that _don’t exist?_  
“Who are you?” You rasp out quietly, as much of an edge to your voice as you can manage.  
  
The woman grins and leans back. The unseen light source - _like a campfire, orange light that dances and flickers around her face_ \- illuminates her features. Long brunette hair tied back into a loose ponytail, her eyes are clear and milky, as though she had terrible cataracts.  
  
Many faded - _and not so faded_ \- scars criss cross her face and revealed skin. A denim vest decorated with a swathe of colourful buttons sits on top of a plaid collared shirt that has the top several buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up to reveal wiry, muscled forearms with _glowing tattoos criss crossing the arm and hand and fingers and holy shit I can see the glow under the sleeves too and just. What._ The tattoos look like a Celtic-ish take on floral tattoos, if the Celts had incredibly accurate and detailed tattoo equipment that could also cause tattoos to glow and shift - _squirm?_ \- nearly imperceptibly on the woman’s skin.  
  
“You’re staring.” Your muscles ache as you jump again and look up at the woman, splayed out on the chair, totally unguarded looking.  
  
“Yeah- just, uh. Wowser.” Despite yourself, you blush. The woman just chuckles. _Sounds familiar._ “I guess so.” She stands and leans on the chair. “To answer your question, I’m just someone fulfilling an obligation. I’ve got three things to tell you, Max.”  
  
_Okay she knows my name. Sure. Could’ve gotten it on the door maybe? Okay she has glowing tattoos and magic lighting, maybe not._  
  
The woman opens her mouth as if to continue but freezes and cocks her head, turning to look behind her and shout with a mildly annoyed expression. “Ya, I know! I’ll be there in a sec!”  
  
She turns back to you with an apologetic smile. “Sorry for shouting.”  
  
“No… problem?” You manage, still at a loss.  
  
She grins again, evidently amused. “Thanks. Now. Three things.” Her expression turns serious again. “One. Chloe is okay, she’s alive, you didn’t fuck up.” You gape at her, not quite sure whether to believe her and desperately, _desperately_ scared of the tiny seed of hope she’d just planted in your breast.  
  
“Two.” She continues, “Things _are_ different. Not ‘will be’, _are._ ” She gazes at you sternly as if asking if you understood. You just nod timidly, still not sure what’s happening.  
  
“Three. Watch out for-” She pauses and looks around the room before stopping and smacking her forehead. “Right, can’t leave any lasting marks uhm- okay.” She mutters to herself. She turns to you again. “Watch out for this symbol.”  
  
She raises one finger circled with florid Celtic designs that start to pulse and glow under her skin, then traces a simple drawing in the air. Where her finger rakes the empty space, a soft green glow remains. It reminds you of those highly exposed pictures people make with sparklers to draw images in the air. You peer at [the symbol](https://i.imgur.com/jnolcHo.png) for a moment before it suddenly breaks apart, dancing into green sparks.  
  
The woman sighs. “Not all of them are dumb enough to wear it in public, but if you see it _anywhere_ , you’re on the right track.”  
  
She cocks her head again - _so familiar_ \- at another unheard shout that she turns to match. “Shut it Punk you know this shit is _hella_ important! I’ll be there in a sec!”  
  
The glowing woman turns back to you sheepishly. “Sorry, again.” She breaks eye contact and looks down at your frail frame pityingly.  
  
“Look, for once time _isn’t_ on our side so I’ll have to make this quick. It’s bending the rules a bit, but fuck it. I imagine you’re uber confused right now, but for what it’s worth, you can ask me one thing. One question, and I’ll answer it as best I can.”  
  
**[] Where is Chloe?  
[] Why are things different?  
[] Okay, but who _are_ you?  
[] Write in**


	2. 1.2

**[X] Why are things different?**

 

The glowing woman simply looks at you with curious eyes as thoughts race through your head.  
  
One question? Time’s not on our side? Chloe’s okay? Things are different?  
  
Part of you screams to follow up on Chloe’s whereabouts, but your rational mind manages to take precedence. You might have no reason to trust the tattooed woman, but you can’t think of why someone - _with powers_ \- would feel the need to trick an emancipated, bedridden girl. Even if that girl can manipulate time.  
  
You swallow weakly as you try to clear out the lump of fear and confusion in your throat. “Why are things different?”  
  
The woman raises her eyebrows and exhales, leaning up against something invisible to you - _okay, that’s pretty disorientating_ \- and casting her eyes around the room thoughtfully. “Always with the big questions, huh?” You feel a warmth in your pale cheeks as she giggles at you.  
  
“Well, I’ll tell you what we know, it’s not much, but hopefully you’ll have better luck than we did.” She sighs and pushes herself up from the invisible wall. “We _mostly_ figured out what it’s not. It’s definitely not purely random chance, or a malfunction in your powers. Your photojump works the same as ever.” You nod, relieved. “It’s not some kind of limit on how many times you can do a jump that you’re reaching.” You nod again, good to know.  
  
She sighs and scratches her head, looking to the middle distance. Her mouth opens and closes into a set line, as if she’s thinking of how to phrase something. “As best we can tell, it’s because of a sort of… interference? And not like radio interference, more like football match interference.”  
  
You sit up a little, alarmed. “From who?”  
  
She smiles a little forlornly and taps the side of her nose twice, then winks. “That’d be _spoilers_ , unfortunately.”  
  
You gape at her, but she’s cocked her head back at another inaudible shout. “Right!” She looks back down at you. “Time’s up Max. You’ll do fine. Better than me, hopefully.”  
  
She steps away towards the wall of the left side of the room, pausing at the threshold of an invisible barrier and turning back to you with a serious look. “Last things. Don’t forget to do this again when it’s time.” Her expression softens a bit. “And uh. Wish me luck. You’ll need it.”  
  
She flashes you a peace sign - _on her palm. Is that the same burn as_ \- and without waiting for your reply, she steps beyond the threshold, and disappears from your room.  
  
Huh. _Huh_.

 

≅≅≅

  
Well you weren’t at a shortage of things to worry about before the woman’s visit, and that sure as shit didn’t improve afterwards.  
  
Your body still isn’t in prime condition though, and despite your best efforts you fall asleep until the Doctors come for your evening checks.  
  
They say they want you to remain hospitalized for at least another month while you start going through rehab. That _won’t_ do.  
  
_Ugh_. You wish you had your phone, you could at least be doing research. But you’re not sure where they’d keep that, if it even survived the car crash.  
  
The car crash _. Mom and dad_ … You flinch as you think of your parents. Even in all your experiences accidentally altering reality with your powers they’d never been so directly affected - _impacted_ \- like this.  
  
You clench your right hand, and then flex it experimentally. You haven’t tried rewinding since you woke up, but that woman seemed to imply you still could, and you _feel_ like you’re still connected to that familiar plethora of threads. You still feel a little irrationally… afraid though, after what happened last time you used your powers.  
  
You’re already behind schedule in even just meeting Chloe though, plus you have no idea how things will be at Blackwell with you not attending for the first month. But can you convince the hospital to let you go? Do you have to?

 

Current Point - October 7th, 2013, around 8:30pm

  
  
**[] Try to convince the Hospital staff to let you go**  
If you’re doing this, give me a couple of points or strategies to convince them, Max will try them one after the other with rewinding (unless the first one works, or you specify otherwise). She cannot do this indefinitely however.  
**[] Use your powers to escape the hospital**  
If you’re doing this, give me a basic idea of how you’re gonna get out. Max doesn’t know the hospital’s layout, and can’t rewind longer than a minute and thirty seconds from a given Point without side effects. Not to mention she’s currently…. a little frail.  
**[] Write In**


	3. 1.3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Markala's Plan" is as follows:  
> [X] Use your powers to escape the hospital  
> -[X] First find a way to take a selfie and print it out (would a photo printed out on crappy printer paper work? Would the resolution matter? Powertesting~) just in case we need a Hard Photojump escape back in time.  
> -[X] Use Common Sense and Rewind-Teleport to avoid the night nurses, they have a sixth sense to know when weird shit's up in their Domain; respect and fear the scrubs.  
> -[X] Find some shoes, hopefully a bra and DEFINITELY a jacket (preferably a hoodie) and some pants; we are not walking outside at night in just a hospital gown.  
> \--[X] That being said, DON'T DISCARD OR TOTALLY REMOVE the hospital gown, tuck it into the pants and hide it underneath the jacket, remember to close said jacket.  
> \--[X] Is there a change of clothes for us anywhere in our hospital room? If not, does the hospital have a lost and found? Steal them with Rewind teleporty  
> -[X] Try not to get caught on the security cameras in general, if there are any.  
> -[X] Does your hospital room have a window? Try to find out what floor you're on; if you're on the first floor, figure out how to sneak out said window, and if on the 2nd floor or above, don't do that and continue with the next vote option.  
> -[X] Walk confidently but quickly through the lobby like you were just a late night visitor or something, then Rewind Teleport yourself outside just to be safe (so that the hospital staff won't remember seeing you leave).  
> -[X] Go to Chloe's house  
> \--[X] Remember to pace yourself while traveling to Chloe's house, steal a bicycle on the street if you have to (remember not to get caught, avoid all people whilst traveling in general and always pick up any loose change you see lying around because the economy is still a dumpsterfire).  
> \--[X] Try to do this without getting kidnapped, mugged or run over by a night driver, and then teleport/climb up to Chloe's bedroom window like she's your blue-haired Rapunzel.  
> \---[X] Don't fall and don't die.  
> \---[X] Be prepared, Chloe's probably still (rightly) pissed with you.

_**[X] Markala's Plan** _

 

__As much as you’d like to be able take time getting your strength back, you’re on a deadline. Until proven otherwise you _have_ to assume the Storm will still be coming on Friday. You force yourself up onto your elbows, and heave your upper body into a sitting upright position.  
  
Your back and arm muscles _burn_ in protest, but you grit your teeth and continue. You hook your right arm under your legs and _heave_ them over the side of the bed. You pinwheel your arms a bit as your legs threaten to throw you off balance from the side of the bed. This whole “waking up from a two month coma” thing _kinda_ blows.  
  
You take a deep breath and get ready to try to step off of the side of the bed. No chance to really test your weight since your toes only barely reach the floor from here. _Chloe’s giraffe legs would reach._ A small giggle escapes your lips at the thought. _Chloe…_  
  
Feeling as mentally prepared as you can be, you swing your legs and push yourself off of the bed as strongly as you can.  
  
_CRASH_  
  
Ow. OW. God damnit you- Ugh. You clipped the IV drip stand on your way down and knocked it to the floor with you. Oh, and your legs didn’t hold, obviously. With a grimace you roll yourself away from the bed and, mostly importantly, out of contact with the IV stand. You hear approaching footsteps from the hallway, lending a sense of urgency as you struggle to get out of the way.  
  
_Well, now or never Max._ Your hand clenches into a fist before you raise it into the air. You focus in on your right hand, on the feeling of a myriad of threads wrapped around it and into everything that surrounds it. You almost have to suppress a laugh as they gather, _so easily_ , around your hand. You’re _Max Caulfield, Time Warrior_ , you shouldn’t have doubted yourself.  
  
The last thread clicks into place, giving your hand the feeling of having been wrapped in a layer of a hundred different pieces of string, each pulling it in a different direction. But you refuse those pulls, and instead, with an instinct that feels as natural as blinking or breathing, _twist_ the whole mess of thread counter-clockwise _through_ your still hand.  
  
You allow yourself a small, relieved smile as the world around you turns slightly blurry, as though being viewed through frosted glass, and everything desaturates slightly, the colours becoming muted. You watch as the IV stand shoots back up as though gravity had been reversed, and your bed-covers rearrange themselves, going so far as to hold in the now empty air in a Max-shaped lump, before collapsing as you release your hold on the threads.  
  
You let your arm sag back down into a position you can prop yourself up in as the feeling of the threads fades back into the background. The sound energy from the IV stand no longer ever occured, and neither did the sound of you landing on the floor, but you listen quietly for footsteps anyway. Nothing. _Sweet._  
  
Alright. You breath out a sigh. Time to get this show on the road. You force yourself forward and onto your knees. _One step at a time._ You carefully lift one leg and brace it into a kneeling position, then in one motion _push_ yourself up and stagger into the wall next to the door, your legs feeling like spaghetti beneath you.  
  
_It’s been forever since I had spaghetti._ The sound of incoming footsteps shakes you out of the thought. _Well, Max’s Rewind Counter ticks up to two._ You flip so your back is what’s supporting your weight against the wall and raise your hand. A moment of threads and desaturated colours later, you’re back to before you’d even gotten off the bed. A fond smile crests your face as the Max shaped lump in the bedsheets goes flat again. _The ghost of Arcadia General, I wonder if I’ll start any stories when I disappear?_  
  
No need to get ahead of yourself though. First things first, you’ve gotta get a selfie. You’re already antsy without the butterfly photograph, and even if that woman assured you that Chloe was fine, you _don’t_ want to risk her suddenly not being fine before you’ve even reconnected.  
  
You sigh. That part is… always hard. You tried, twice, to catch her before she even went to the bathroom with Nathan, but each time she blew you off. She was _pissed_. It seems like the only way you even start to reconcile is if she gets you out of a jam. But… you get it. You hurt her, badly, and she’s already suffering so much with Rachel’s disappearance too…  
  
You give yourself a mental slap. Chloe’s important, and that’s why you’ve gotta focus. She’s your number one priority. You press your ear near the crack of the door. No footsteps. Based on how quickly you heard them before though, you’re guessing there’s a night nurse at a station nearby, possibly reading a magazine or on her phone.  
  
You glance at your window quickly before you begin. _Second floor, no chance I could scale down in this condition._ Judging by the light level it’s probably about… nine? Nine thirty? That’ll have to do for a benchmark.  
  
One last focused exhalation, and you push yourself up from the wall. Unsteady for a moment - _hehe, Bambi legs-_ then ready to go. You open the door to your room _oh jeez that’s loud_ and slip out as it closes with a _CLICK._ It might just be the stillness of the hospital wing, but everything seems so much lou-  
  
“[Hey!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P5qbcRAXVk) What are you doing?” You freeze and do a stagger-turn towards the voice, already lifting your hand. A young woman, probably only a couple years older than you hesitates in her steps as you raise your burned palm at her. _Huh, I probably look pretty freaky right now._ Pushing the thought aside, you quickly spin those familiar threads around your hand, and _twist._ The world goes grey. You watch her walk in reverse, see the moment of surprise when she first sees you, then watch her disappear around a corner. You watch your door out of the corner of your eye until it opens slightly to let ‘you’ through, then closes, before you release the rewind.  
  
The sudden turn you did to look at the nurse brought something to your attention. You reach behind your ear and pull a lock of your hair forward, nose turning up in distaste. _Ugh, too long. I have to take care of that_. Looks like it grew just past shoulder length while you were comatose. _Maybe I can get Chloe to cut it?_  
  
You shake your head again. _Too easily distracted_. Maybe a few loops ago you’d have entertained these thoughts, but you’re… tired. Tired of Arcadia Bay and tired of the _bullshit_ it throws at you. An old phrase comes back to you. _With great power comes great bullshit_. Heh.  
  
You focus back in on your current goal. _A selfie._ You recall that the nurse had an IPhone in her hand when she was coming down the hall and a plan starts to formulate. _This might take a few tries._  
  
The first attempt doesn’t quite work out. You underhand threw a magazine past her desk, hoping she’d get up and leave her phone behind, but no dice. A rewind later and you’re back to square one. You decide a more direct approach might be in order. As quietly as you can, you limp up to her desk and slip behind it, inching your way up to her chair.  
  
You tense and raise your right arm in preparation, before reaching out and snatching the phone from her grip. The woman lets out a cute yelp and starts to turn to you, but you’re already rewinding and backing up to the cover of the wall. _Sorry miss, you’ll get this back in a second. Well, a second in the past_. You let go of the rewind and hear the woman give a short “Wha-” before scrounging around her desk.  
  
You look at the time. 9:47. Huh, later than you thought you’d be at this point. _No lock screen? Come on lady._ You quickly tap through to the alarm app and set a timer for a minute and twenty seconds. _I need to be really careful about this._ You click through to the camera app and get your first good look at yourself.  
  
_Oh man…_ You aren’t looking great. Your eyes are kind of sunken looking and your cheeks are a little gaunt. A healed scar curves it’s way up your right cheek and into the hairline above your ear. _That’s new. Car crash I guess._ Your hair is longer than you’d ever willingly have it, and your bangs are, by necessity, swept to either side.  
  
You’re suddenly snapped back to reality by the alarm. _Right._ You hold up your hand and _twist_ the threads again, till you reckon it’s about a minute twenty. With a tap you reset the alarm to start again. _Okay, picture time.  
  
Click._ It’s nothing fancy, but it’ll do the job. Now the hard part. You’d put some thought into this beforehand, at least. You sneak forward to the nurse’s desk again, she’s busy crawling under it. _Perfect._ You tiptoe behind her to the small office off of the reception desk. _Unlocked, good._ You open and jump in, slamming it behind you, and execute a short rewind to get rid of the sound.  
  
_All these rewinds are starting to get taxing, and I don’t even have a picture printed yet._ The alarm goes off again, you wait a few extra seconds to account for the rewound door, then go back the full minute and twenty, and reset the alarm. You try to ignore the beginnings of a familiar headache worming into your skull.  
  
But now you have access to the computer. You quickly navigate to imgur on the nurse’s phone (you suppress a giggle at her now familiar “Wha-” outside when you release the rewind) and upload the selfie as a private image. Mindful of the ticking time, you copy out the URL into the office computer’s browser - _internet explorer, ugh-_ and go. With a right click and some menu navigating, you have the printer printing the picture in as good a quality as you can get it.  
  
_I’ve only ever jumped through polaroids before, but… hopefully this works the same way?_ You’re a little leery of unknown dangers, but you’d rather have it as a last resort than not at all. It _just_ manages to print in time for the alarm to go off. You snatch it - _hot off the press!-_ and start rewinding. After the minute and twenty seconds of rewinding, you dismiss the alarm without resetting it. You quickly delete the selfie and the imgur link in her browser history (the webpage doesn’t actually exist anymore, but better safe than sorry,) and slip out of the office, removing the sound with a quick rewind.  
  
The young nurse is searching under the desk for her phone, you gently place it on the ground in front of the office door before sneaking back to the hallway, selfie in hand. _Step one complete_.  
  
You’re grateful for the reprieve on rewinding, and breathe a sigh of relief when you hear the nurse settle back down with her newly found phone. _Step two, clothes._  


≅≅≅

  
While the clothes you do find aren’t ideal, actually getting them is easier than you’d expected. It had only taken a pair of rewinds to get you to the first floor without being spotted. You ended up pilfering the lost and found for a set of ill fitting clothing. You manage to find a pair of shoes in your size, which is pretty lucky, and an unopened plastic bag of socks for some reason. _I’m not complaining though._ No bra that fits, unfortunately, but you manage to grab a comfy, oversized sweater - _which is basically better than a bra anyway-_ and a large, bright 80’s looking jacket. A oversized pair of men’s jeans completes the ‘look’ once it’s cinched up with a belt. You carefully tucked the hospital gown under the oversized sweater and jacket, which luckily have plenty of room to accommodate.  
  
Once in your getup, you carefully tuck your photograph into the belly pocket of the sweater, and zip the jacket up over it. _Hopefully that keeps it safe_. You spend a moment just out of sight of the lobby jooshing your hair, trying to look like you didn’t literally just roll out of the long term care ward. _Okay, get out fast, then rewind._  
  
Your muscles ache in protest as your straighten your back and stride purposefully into the lobby and towards the door. The elderly receptionist glances up from her sudoku book and gives you a quick appraising look before disinterestedly returning her gaze downward. _Bingo!_  
  
You take a deep breath of fresh air as you step into the moonlight. You feel _invigorated_. The pain in your limbs, and even your rewind headache seem to fade away as you take in deep breaths, still moving purposefully away from the hospital. Once you feel that you’re a sufficient distance from the hospital’s, you pause and sit on some maintained grass.  
  
You wrack your brain. The hospital is _kinda_ in the middle of nowhere, since it was built to service both Arcadia Bay and it’s larger, more affluent neighbour. It’s kinda plopped in the middle of the two towns. You look at the highway sign, pointing _Arcadia Bay_ in one direction and _Egerton’s Peak_ in the other. _Creative namers, those early colonizers._ You reckon it’s about 10:30 now. While you’re feeling a bit more physically capable, and you _think_ you could make it to the Bay walking, you’re a little worried about the state you’d be when you got there. Chloe’s house is on the side of town closest to the hospital, but still.  
  
You look back to the hospital, then at the deserted road. You could _try_ hitchhiking, but without a light to illuminate yourself on the side of the road, you’d have to stay right by the hospital for anyone to see you. And you’re a little worried about someone calling the cops to check on the young girl trying to hitchhike outside of a _hospital_.  
  
You shake your head. There’s no need to overcomplicate things. You got out intending to go to Chloe’s, and go to Chloe’s you will. With a sigh, you turn right from the exit onto the highway and start walking.  


≅≅≅

  
The night is peaceful, and without the urgency of the earlier escape to focus your thoughts, they begin to drift. How much would Blackwell have changed without you in the first month? You sigh a little ruefully to yourself. Probably not much, in all honesty. As you’d readily admit, you’re a bit of a wallflower. You’d met Kate and had tea with her, but that was before Victoria and her cronies started torturing her.  
  
_Ugh, Victoria_. You feel kinda bad for her… but also, not really. She nearly drove Kate to _suicide_. You know that someone doing the same thing many times in multiple loops isn’t the same thing as them doing the same thing a bunch of times in the _same_ loop… but you can’t help but feel angry anyway. You’d watched it happen more than a _dozen_ times. You mostly just hope she isn’t being even harder on Kate without you there to bully as well.  
  
Your stomach turns as your thoughts turn to the other shithead of Blackwell. Nathan Prescott. You grit your teeth despite yourself, some things you don’t think you’d ever, _ever_ get inured to. You sigh. You’d learned a bit more about him in your loops. He was clearly mentally ill and Jefferson - _Mark fucking Jefferson-_ was a terrible, awful influence on him. But he’s dangerous and unstable, and that danger doubles if you ever encounter him and Jefferson at the same time.  
  
_Jefferson._ You’ll get to Jefferson. Even despite the wriggling, squirming black worm of fear that crawls through your whole body, sucking the warmth out when you think of him, you _will_ get to him.  
  
You force your thoughts away before you spiral. What about Warren? You hope him and Brooke are getting along. That’d save you some awkwardness.  
  
Your attention is suddenly caught by a light in the thick forest next to you. A light white glow, and a small blue one above it. You smile and take a few steps towards them. Almost like something rendering into your view distance in a game, the white glow forms into the shape of a doe, looking at you with intelligent, fathomless eyes, while the blue glow resolves itself into a familiar blue butterfly that lands on the doe’s nose.  
  
A feeling of calm warmth and determination fills you, _you’re not alone_. You give them a small smile. “Good to finally see some friendly faces.”  
  
The doe looks at you for a moment, before bowing it’s head gravely. The butterfly does a circle around it’s inclined head, it’s blue glow dancing and flickering between the evergreen needles. The doe returns to it’s full height and turns to go, followed by the butterfly.  
  
The gentle, relieved smile stays on your face as they fade back into the wilderness. _You’re not alone._  


≅≅≅

  
Judging by the quietness of your surroundings, and the gentle light of the moon, you figure it’s about 1:30 AM-ish when you get to Chloe’s house. You’d expected your legs to ache more, but the determination in your breast and adrenaline from how _different_ everything is kept you going. _I guess I’ll probably be hurting a lot more tomorrow._  
  
Your heart pangs as you look up at the familiar house. You have _so_ many memories here. So many hours spent with Chloe. So many moments that you deleted from reality in your quest to never have to live without her. But you resolve yourself. Each time is the chance, the opportunity to make new memories, to make them better for Chloe.  
  
It’s a rule of yours, after the first few times, that you don’t want to rewind moments with Chloe unless you absolutely have to. It’s… you’ve already sacrificed so much of your time with her… and you don’t want to feel like you’ve manipulated her. But this is so different. What if you have to?  
  
You shake the thought aside. You’ll do what needs to be done.  
  
You look tentatively up at the window the two of you got used to sneaking out of. The small shed just outside and below it was what made it good, but you’d never snuck _in_ through it. Let alone while Chloe was in the room. And not expecting you. _Yikes._  
  
  
You take in Chloe's backyard, looking around for something to help you get up. Nothing jumps out at you. _Bleh, this might be harder than I th- Oh hold on._ Your eye catches on something _just_ poking out from leaning on the other side of the house.  
  
Sweet! You find a tall ladder that people use to get up on roofs. _That's convenient_. Not worrying about noise, you carefully drag it over to the side of the house the shed is on, and lean it down against the roof with a loud _BANG._ You wince at the loud noise. _Sorry Chlo._ Then you mount the ladder and hold your hand up. _Hope this works_. Fortunately the ladder stays still, and after a moment you let go of the rewind. You listen carefully for movement inside the house. _Nothing_. Huh, so even though the ladder stayed in place, unlike the doors from earlier, you rewound to before it would've made the sound and caused it to already be there, making the sound... never... get made? You wonder what would happen if you rewound from inside a car. Time travel is weird.  
  
You scale the ladder about a third of the way, to the height of the shed, and dismount onto it. You're practiced at not making any noise on the shed at this point. You carefully hook your thumb under an indent in Chloe's window. _Pleasedon'twakeupyetPleasedon'twakeupyet._ And quietly pull it up. _Phew._  
  
You crawl inside, directly onto Chloe's desk. _Carefully..._ And close the window behind you. As soon as you register the soft warmth and the comforting, familiar scent, exhaustion hits you like a ton of bricks. _God you're tired._ You try to crawl down from the desk carefully but you knock her reading lamp right off the desk. _THUNK._  
  
Her voice. Cutely bleary, tinged with sleep. "Huh- wha-" her tone turns disbelieving, "Rachel?" _Ah-_ You feel a pang in your chest but you swallow your nervousness, looking towards her bed. You see the silhouette of her body up on her elbows, fumbling for her bedside lamp.  
  
_click._  
  
Warm orange light floods the messy room. You squint and blink a little as your eyes adjust. When you finally open them, you see Chloe staring at you disbelievingly.  
  
"I- Wha- You're? Max?" Her face stays adorably surprised for a moment, framed by her messy blue bedhead, before it falls into a sudden stormcloud. " _Max?_ What. The. _FUCK?"_  
  
Here we go. This is always hard.  
  


Current Point - October 8th, 2013, around 1:30am  
  
\- Photographs -  
October 7th, 2013, 9:47pm. In hallway of hospital, no clothes yet, and holding “borrowed” phone.

**[] Shh!**  
Try to get her to stay quiet so she doesn't wake Joyce and David  
**[] I'm sorry!**  
Blurt out what you're feeling.  
**[] ...**  
Stay quiet.  
**[] Write In**  
Give me how you'd like to calm her down, and some points for the ensuing conversation.


	4. 1.4

_**[X] I'm Sorry** _

You take in a deep breath, harried thoughts running through your mind of how to tell her about your powers and how to apologize and how to explain that you _need_ her-

But instead your face crumbles as you stagger forward and fall onto your knees next to the bed, your oversized clothes splaying out on the floor around you. “Chloe I- I’m sor-” You give a weak cough, your weakened voice not strong enough to support itself through the sobs that threaten to choke themselves out of your throat. “I’m _sorry._ ” You finally manage to rasp out.

Silence. Guilt hammers through you like a bolt of lightning. Had you begun to take her pain for granted when you were doing those loops? How many times had you found some way to sidestep this? With a force of effort, your raise your neck, muscles burning, and find yourself looking in her eyes.

Her face is a half-worn mask of confusion and worry. _Oh man, I must look like total shit right now_ . “Max. I- Look, hey.” Chloe scoots up to the end of her bed, her expression cautious. “We’ll… we’ll talk about it. But _why_ are you in my room at one in the morning? And why do you look like… uh…”

“Like total shit?” You offer quietly.

“Heh.” She barks a short chuckle. “Yeah.”

You look back down at the ground. Quietly you ask, “You’re… not mad?” The blue haired girl is quiet for a moment.

“Max… it’s been five years. Yeah, what you did was- is shitty, but I’m not gonna sit here and tear you a new one for it at one in the morning with you looking like _this._ ” Another quiet moment. Your heart wells up and you feels like crying again. You just sniffle, instead.

The punk scoots off of the bed and squats in front of you slowly. “Hey, look. Let’s get you a _real_ change of clothes, something comfortable. But then I need you to tell me what’s going on, okay?” Her voice is so gentle. Five years of silence, then you crawl in through her window at one in the morning and she’s _comforting you?_

_You don’t deserve her._

Shut up.

You nod to Chloe and she gives you an awkward, gentle smile, before getting up to rummage around her closet.

 

**[] Lay it all on her now, the powers, the timeloops, everything.**

**[] Just tell her about your powers and the coma**

**[] Write in**

There’s a lot of ways you could handle this, if you’d like to make more nuanced or specific things to tell her about (or omit…), put them under this category please.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A fellow lesbian: is in sad and in distress  
> Chloe Price, shooting bolt upright in bed: Something’s wrong


	5. 1.5

A few minutes later you find yourself wearing a pair of comfortable PJ pants, men’s boxers, a soft PJ top, and your oversized sweater from the lost and found on top of it all. Even though your mind is alert and practically still on the verge of panic, your body is so exhausted that it’s a struggle to not fall asleep as you lean against the wall behind Chloe’s bed with blankets piled on top of you.  
  
Chloe finished cleaning up the small mess you’d made by the window. You’re thankful you didn’t wake up Joyce or David with the crash. _Or maybe you did, but they’re used to Chloe sneaking in and out._  
  
The taller girl takes a seat on the end of the bed and fixes you with a serious gaze, still tinged with worry. “Little better, Max?”  
  
You give a small nod, moving at all hurts, which she seemed to have picked up on.  
  
“So, what’s up?” She asks.  
  
You break eye contact and gaze at the far wall of the room. Where do you even start? What _do_ you even tell her? What’s too far and how much do you have the energy to prove? Even you’re not sure what’s really going on right now.  
  
Well, she saw the hospital gown, so that’s at least a place to start.  
  
“Well-” You cough again quietly. Your voice is getting a little firmer, still not quite there though. “My family was driving me and my stuff to the Bay back in September-” Chloe’s face hardens slightly. “But we were in an accident. A _bad_ one. I-” You hesitate a moment. “I don’t remember it, but it left all three of us in comas…” There. That’s not a lie. _It’s not the truth, either._  
  
Chloe’s looking concerned now, her eyes dart quickly to her phone before she guiltily meets your gaze again.  
  
You steel yourself, reflexively twitching your right hand and snagging a few threads that hold to attention for a moment, before drifting off at your inaction.  
  
“Chloe, I have… powers.” You pause. This part always makes you feel stupid. “Like. Time powers.”  
  
Her gaze holds on you for a moment. Her eyes dart again. She starts slowly reaching for her phone. _Ugh._  
  
“Chloe look, just- just watch this.” Her arm wavers and retracts to her side. Her gaze is dubious, and slightly cautious, but she’s watching. _There’s always a_ part _of her that wants to believe._  
  
You spread your arms, as if for her to verify that you are _definitely_ sitting there, then with a muttered “ _Ow_...” you get yourself up from the bed, and pace over to the side of the room her door is on. She follows you with her head, face becoming more incredulous by the second.  
  
With a sigh, you spread your arms again, raising your right just a bit higher. Then, you _pull_ the colour from the world, watching Chloe’s head reverse-follow you from the bed, and then cancel the rewind at approximately when you think you spread your arms the first time.  
  
“Ta-da.” You say, your voice flat.  
  
Chloe’s head whips around as her whole body tenses and she jumps in surprise. Well, she’s wide awake now.   
  
“Holy _shit_ Max, wha- what the fuck?” You give a little shrug. “But- you- You said time powers, but you teleported!”  
  
You shrug again. “I walked over here, then rewound- uh, turned back time to before you saw me walk over.”  
  
She gapes at you, leaning back on her elbows on the bed. “Does that mean that I just- or… I guess, one of me? Just watched you walk over there and pose like an idiot?”  
  
You give her a small grin. “Smartass.” _Maybe one more example… just to prove it. This doesn’t count._ You raise your right arm a bit and _twist_ the threads.  
  
Chloe gapes at you, leaning back on her elbows on the bed. “Does-”  
  
You cut her off. “Yes Chloe, that means some other you just watched me walk over here and pose like an idiot.” A weak, but nonetheless smarmy grin spreads across your face.  
  
Chloe’s eyebrows shoot up as she gapes at you for a second more. “ _Smartass…”_ She mutters. “That’s cheating, but point taken…” Her expression turns serious. “Max, this is kind of…. Fucking awesome. But… you didn’t answer my question.”  
  
She watches you go back to the bed before speaking. “Why are you _here?_ Like. I appreciate you trusting me with this and all, and it really is _hella_ cool. But why me?”  
  
**[] Write In**  
Ya, I’m making y’all do a write-in for this one. What’s Max’s attitude towards Chloe going to be like? You’re in a world that became different from yours _before_ you even canonically got your powers, what’s to say Chloe’s in the same danger as before?


	6. 1.6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [X] You're so important to me. This isn't...this isn't the first time I've done this. All of this. Bad shit just...keeps happening, to you, to me, to everybody I know and care about, over and over. I don't know why, and I...I t-try to fix things but so far it's never worked. Not for long. I'm just so...so tired. I just want to see my best friend again.

Thinking about _why_ … You almost laugh. Almost. Why would anyone subject themselves to this? Each time you tried you knew just a _bit_ more than the last. Memorized a _few_ more conversations, found _more_ ways to get things done faster. Each time hoping, _praying_ that it would be enough to tip things in your favour, enough to get Chloe _out_ of the unfair fucking _grudge_ Arcadia Bay seems to have for her.  
  
That’s the crux of it, isn’t it? Chloe. You’re doing it for her. For her.  
  
You open your mouth, but the sudden feeling of wetness trickling down your face has you shutting it prematurely and looking into your lap. You wipe your eyes with your sleeves that hang down well past your hand.  
  
You feel, from the way the bed dimples, Chloe scooch up closer to you. Not _close_ , but closer. You look up, her face shows worry, almost a protectiveness. Guess she didn’t expect _that_ response to her question.  
  
Well, neither did you, you suppose.  
  
Emotion floods up from your chest where it feels like your heart is caught in a vice grip. The words just come spilling out. “You’re _so_ important to me Chloe and this isn-” Your voice hitches breathily and you choke back another sob. “This isn’t the first time I’ve done this, all- _all_ of this. Bad shit just _keep happening,_ to _you_ , to _me_ , to _everybody I know and care about_. Just- _over,_ and _over,_ and _over-_ ” You bury your face in your sleeves and try to keep quiet as shudders wrack your body, frail as it is.  
  
You distantly hear Chloe get up and come back. When she speaks her voice is uncertain, scared even, but gentle. “Hey, Max, here.” You unbury your face from your sleeves and see her offering you a box of tissues.  
  
“Th-thanks.” You take the whole box and pull a few tissues from it. Chloe is quiet as you blow your nose and recompose yourself.  
  
One last swallow to try to clear the lump of irrational guilt and fear of rejection in your throat - _nope-_ and you continue. “I don’t- I don’t know _why_ bad shit keeps happening, I _try_ and _try_ to fix things but so far it’s never _worked._ Never for long. Never for long _enough._ ” You look up at her, blinking your watery eyes enough to focus your vision. She looks back intently, hanging on your every word, thinking. “I’m just so… _so_ tired, Chloe. I just…” You break eye contact and your voice fades to almost a whisper. “I just want to see my best friend again.”  
  
Chloe keeps her silence, and you chance a glance up. _Awh_. You recognize that expression. She’s thinking, _hard_. Her brow is furrowed and her eyes narrowed, staring, almost glaring to the side, as if the answers to all the questions fighting for attention in her head are hiding just out of sight.  
  
Her face suddenly relaxes and her piercing, blue-eyed gaze swings back to you. “Max, I-” Her voice wavers with uncertainty, before her jaw sets and she continues in her smooth alto. “This is... a lot.” You nod as she continues. “But Max, even if I don’t really get everything yet, I’m…” She sighs. “I’m on your side, okay?” She reaches out and awkwardly kinda pats your shoulder before withdrawing sheepishly. “Besides!” She says with a forced brightness. “You’ve got totally _badass_ superpowers now, what kind of idiot would I be to just kick you out now?”  
  
You offer a wan smile at that, which she readily accepts with a grin of her own. A flurry of white movement from what little you can see of the window catches your attention, and your smiles falls as you scoot forward on the bed. _Oh no…_  
  
Chloe gives you a confused look, then follows your gaze, standing up and peering over her desk out the window. “Snow?” She says. “In October?”  
  
Your mind races. This is… different. Not much different, but different. You’re _sure_ the snow usually falls in the afternoon, you usually see it with Chloe at the lighthouse right as the sun is setting.  
  
“Yo, Earth to Max?” Chloe’s voice rings in your ear for a second as you shake your head and refocus your eyes. “You good?”  
  
“Sorry, uh- yeah.” A small nod in return.  
  
“Let’s try to grab some shuteye, okay? Hopefully a few hours of sleep before my mom wakes us up.” She pauses at that thought. “Yeesh. Explaining you might be a doozy…”  
  
You giggle quietly. “I guess so…” She gives a smile back before tucking into her side of the bed.  
  
You’re about to let yourself drift off after she shuts the light off, but you feel her prop herself up, so you roll over towards her. “Everything alright?” Her face is pensive in the cool evening light, shadows of snowflakes cast a dimly dancing show over her closet, portending a coming calamity you don't even want to _start_ thinking about tonight.  
  
“You said time powers, right?” She speaks slowly, as if restraining herself. You give a small nod. “What if- ugh.” She pauses, searching for the words. “After you… left. I had a close friend.” Icy nervousness suddenly clamps in the pit of your stomach. “She… disappeared like six months ago and she hasn’t been found.” She looks at you, her restrained words belying the childlike hope that burns softly in her eyes. “Do you think… your powers could help find her? Or even make it so she never went missing?”  
  
You roll onto your back, breaking the eye contact. You don’t _think_ you can. Not without soft photojumping to your time in Seattle and only having god knows _how_ long to warn Rachel about Jefferson, and that would only help _if_ she took you seriously.  
  
But… you consider. _There’s more going on this time._ The woman in the hospital room, who you don’t _think_ was a hallucination. The woman who was familiar in so many ways, yet none felt like tics you’d seen on anyone you know. She had glowing tattoos, she could draw in the air, she appeared to you out of _nowhere_ then went right back to that nowhere. Do you want to risk telling Chloe you can and possibly crush her even harder if - _when_ \- you do find Rachel? Do you want to just tell her what happened? The options feel like a crushing vice pushing the breath out of your chest.  
  
**[] Write in**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a tendency to outwardly screw my face up to match the emotion of words I'm reading in a book or hearing in a movie or play, and I suppose I do it while writing too cause all the muscles in my face feel like they just ran a marathon lmao. Thanks for the very well worded write-in Spector29, that gave me a lot to work with.


	7. 1.7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [X] Plan Letting Her Down Easy  
> Proposed by Spector29  
> 7ime1ock, Spector29, Markala, Teen Spirit, Gino, RiversOblivion

You let out a deep breath. Your voice comes back, shaky and uneven. “It’s… remember when I mentioned I’ve d-done this before?” You see a small nod from the corner of your eye. “This-... It isn’t the first time you’ve asked.”  
  
You feel her freeze on her half of the bed as she thinks that through, not even breathing. “Oh.” Her voice is small, painfully so.  
  
You scoot up so you’re sitting up too, and lean in a bit, trying to be comforting without intruding and hurry to continue. “But Chloe I- I can help. I migh- I _maybe_ know where Rachel is. If she’s not there, there might be- Well… we might have a chance.”  
  
You watch the taller girl closely, trying to to see if she caught onto your subtle implication. Chloe’s quiet, though at least breathing again, if kinda shallowly. She turns to you with an expression akin to something like awe. “You knew her name.” She states simply. “You knew her name and all I said was that she’d been gone for six months.”  
  
You lean back against the wall and give her a small smile through the dark. “That will- might happen sometimes Chloe.” A distinction occurs to you though. “But Chloe.” You turn to her, your expression becoming serious. “Things are different this time. The a-” Your voice breaks slightly as you think of your parents, still at the hospital. Your swallow the new lump in your throat. “The accident is new. Things are different this time and I don’t know _why_ or _how much_. I’m… more in the dark than I’d like to be.”  
  
She nods slowly. “But… you’ll help? You’ll help me find Rachel?” She really didn’t catch on. She doesn’t want to believe Rachel’s dead.  
  
Swallowing the rising bitterness in your throat as your mind returns to that upturned dirt at the junkyard, you force yourself to smile. “Chloe, of course.” You put your hands over her hand closest to you, tightly balling up the sheets over her leg. “I promise I’ll do what I can to help you… regardless of what’s different.” Or isn’t.  
  
Her breath hitches, and her voice is low and soft when she speaks. “Thanks Max.”  
  
Your heart nearly beats it’s way out of your chest. Of course you _want_ to help her, you’re just worried about the _futility_ of it. You look over at her, still fretting pensively. You guess your answer didn’t really reassure her, just… explained some stuff. Maybe she needs something more actionable?  
  
“Chloe, hey.” You catch her attention away from her reverie with a gentle elbow nudge to the ribs. “I’m gonna need your help too y’know.”  
  
She snorts and nudges you back. Well, ‘nudges’ you. Ow. “What could a Time Warrior need my help for?”  
  
“I’m serious Chloe! With all the timeline changes. You’ve got to tell me if anything’s different from what I know.” She opens her mouth with a start before you cut her off. “But not- not now. In the morning, but it’s important. Time travel is… dangerous.” You hesitate, and briefly consider telling her about the Alternate Timeline. No, that… might just make things harder. “Dangerous and unstable,” you continue, “if I try to do anything major- change anything major, there’s a chance I never come back at all.”  
  
She looks startled. _There’s a reality to time travel that doesn’t really sink in till you experience it. I don’t want her to have to but she has to_ understand _at least_. “That’s-… Okay Max. I’ll do my best” Her voice brightens even as she says that. You take your hands off of hers and start to nestle back down into the bed. “It’ll be just like old times, right? Max and Chloe, partners in crime!”  
  
The phrase makes you giggle. Some things never change. “And partners in time.” You reply, finishing the familiar phrase.  
  
She grins at you infectiously. “That’s pretty good!”  
  
You smile back. “Well, you came up with it.” You put emphasis on the ‘you’ hoping the idea comes across.  
  
Her smile falters for a moment before picking back up. “Well, way to go Other-Chloe, witty and punny all across the multiverse.”  
  
You giggle again as she finally settles down under the covers and you nestle yourself into the mattress. God you’re exhausted. “Night Chlo.” You mutter, voice and head already thick with sleep.  
  
“G’night Max.” Chloe replies, already drifting off herself.

 

≅≅≅

  
“Wakey wakey eggs ‘n bakey, get’ya butt down here Chloe!”  
  
A familiar voice ringing loudly through the house wakes you. You smile warmly. _Joyce_. But you’re _so comfortable_. All your aching muscles are practically already screaming at you not to get up. The pleasantly warm arm around your shoulders like a rollercoaster safety bar doesn’t help matters either.  
  
Hold on. Arm around your shoulders? You carefully crane your neck over to look at Chloe. _Oh my God_. The blue haired girl is lying on her side, one arm under her pillow, the other stretched over your back. If she were any closer she’d practically be spooning you. Warmth rises to your cheeks as her bleary eyes finally open and blink a few times.  
  
“Oh. Hey Max.” She says sleepily.  
  
“Hey Chloe.” You say with a smirk, lending _just enough_ of a teasing edge to your voice that she notices. She just looks at you with a perplexed expression for a moment. As if someone on a headset whispered to her though, her eyes suddenly widen and she jerks her arm back, a warm blush rising to her cheeks as you double over giggling.  
  
She sits up spluttering. “I- Y’know I’m just. It was cold, I mean it snowed and- Well I’m used to- Y’know.”  
  
You just nod along with each cut-off excuse, holding your teasing smirk in spite of yourself. “Mmhm. Mhm? Mmmmhm.”  
  
Chloe catches on though, and gives you a gentle shove back onto your back on the soft mattress. “Oh just can it, hippie!” You openly laugh, but the sound of someone stomping up the stairs cuts the both of you off at once.  
  
You look at each other, sudden worry and realization hitting you both at once. “Joyce!” You say at the same time.  
  
“Chloe I swear if you aren’t outta there in thirty seconds, I’m comin’ in!” Oh Joyce.  
  
Chloe practically leaps up from her bed, shouting. ‘My! Uh! Bra is stuck! Don’t come in!”  
  
Her mother’s doubtful voice sounds from the hall. “Right. Mmhm.”  
  
Chloe frantically tears through the closet for clothes for herself, she leans over and stage whispers to you. “Any plan to explain you to her, time warrior?”  
  
  
**[] Write In**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ech, I wrote this on mobile google docs and it killed all my formatting when I pasted it in. I think I got all the spots with places where italics matter for tone though!


	8. 1.8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [X] Hide  
> -[X] in the closet, if it worked on David, it'll work on Joyce.  
> -[X] realize that we probably gotta remove the ladder before Joyce, David, or the neighbors see.  
> Suggested by Markala  
> Markala, 7ime1ock, Teen Spirit

Your mind races but there’s _no time_. Her eyes widen as you stage whisper back. “No!” And dive past her into the closet, shutting it behind you.  
  
Chloe gamely keeps pace. “ _Right!_ ” Then runs to the other side of the room and kicks your hospital gown under her bed.  
  
She _just_ manages to get into a neutral position as Joyce finally says “Time’s up Chloe!” and walks in. To her credit, she pauses for a second on opening the door in case there’s any last pleas, but after that she barges right in.  
  
From the slats of the closet you can see her pause when she takes in Chloe standing in the middle of the room, trying for nonchalance. “Well- I suppose it’s good that you’re finally up.”  
  
Chloe’s arms cross, eyes glaring at Joyce. “Ya. I’ve _been_ up. I’ll be down in a sec.”  
  
Joyce hesitates, her face falling a bit before resetting itself sternly. “Alrighty then. I’m headin’ into work early.”  
  
“Okay.” Chloe’s voice is impassive. _Ugh. I hate seeing them like this_.  
  
They hold eye contact for another moment. “David’s already gone to work.” Joyce says.  
  
Chloe rolls her eyes. “ _Okay_.”  
  
“Just…” Joyce’s voice is strained now. _She’s holding back how upset she is._ “Stay outta trouble, alright?”  
  
“Sure mom, whatever.”  
  
Joyce starts for the door, but pauses on seeing the closed closet door. You freeze as it feels like she looks right into your eyes. “Huh. Thanks for finally cleanin’ up that closet Chlo.”  
  
You think back. You _guess_ it was kinda laying open with clothes spilling out before you dove in. David never mentioned that. Chloe herself looks somewhat startled. “Uh. No problem mom.” She gives Joyce a small, forced smile. You can clearly see her _forcing_ herself not to look at the closet.  
  
Joyce smiles back, a bit of the subtle unease around her eyes fading away. “Seeya later sweetheart. Don’t let your breakfast get cold.” And finally walks out of Chloe’s room. You both hold your breath for a moment. Two moments. Then the sound of the door opening and shutting has you both sigh in relief.  
  
You try to shove your way out of the cramped closet, but the folding door catches on something and throws you off balance, sending you reeling out of the closet and onto a pile of soft linens. _This… counts as clean?_ You guess Joyce is taking what she can get at this point. You’re thankful it was there at least. A peel of laughter from Chloe has you casting your eyes up in mock annoyance.  
  
“Really? Making fun of a girl who just got out of the hospital?” You put on your best Victoria impression.  
  
Chloe puts her hands on her hips and peers down over you. “Oh? You mean the girl who just _ran away_ from the hospital?”  
  
You both laugh at that, and you accept her hand to haul you back up to a standing position. A smile that you can’t seem to beat down remains on your face as your laughter fades and you take a seat on the edge of the bed.  
  
Your mind is a bit calmer than last night. You’re _here_. You have Chloe, she doesn’t hate you. You’re not _certain_ what comes next, but… y’know. You guess that’s just kinda how normal people live their lives, huh? _It kinda sucks._  
  
That thought gives you pause. Other than demonstrating to Chloe, you hadn’t rewound at all since the hospital, right? Not even to see what would happen if you burst out and said hi to Joyce. _That_ image gives you reason to giggle a bit. _It’s because Joyce isn’t an asshole who I’d need to stop._ Your giggle fades.  
  
Chloe’s quiet, so you glance over to her. “Something up?”  
  
She nods once, sharply. “Ya, just had a thought. The hospital’s gonna be looking for you right? Probably put a missing person’s report on the radio or tv.”  
  
You blanch. _Ugh_. You hadn’t thought of that. “That might make things… more difficult, yeah.”  
  
Chloe stretches her arms to either side of her, letting out a long sigh as she does. Suddenly she drops her arms and smiles at you. “I guess we’ll just have to get you looking like a not-corpse!”  
  
“ _Pfft_. Rude!” You say, lightly tossing a pillow towards her teasing giggles. “You’re right though. I don’t really like wearing my hair long anymore. Think you could give me a Price Family Haircut and some clothes?”  
  
Chloe grins. “Ouh, confident testing your luck at the wheel of haircuts, are you? Sure thing Max. Let’s take care of that first.”

 

≅≅≅

 

An hour of nervous joking while Chloe flailed a pair of scissors around later, you’re both back in Chloe’s room. Chloe’s actually a really good hairdresser, both Joyce and William had come from families that handled their own haircuts, and Chloe learned from both of them. She doesn’t quite know how to _style_ hair, but she knows her way around scissors well enough that your hair doesn’t look uneven at all, ending in a nice bob. _The way it usually is._  
  
You’d briefly considered asking her for something a bit more daring, but you figure you’ll leave that for another time. _Hopefully there will be another time._ “Here!” Her bright voice breaks you out of your reverie. She’s pulling a familiar plaid shirt out of the her closet to show you. “There ya go, Rachel left a bunch of her clothes with me, I think she’s yo-”  
  
You smile and nod at the familiar line. “She’s my size.” You say gently.  
  
Chloe freezes up a moment. “I- hah. That’s great.” _More forced enthusiasm. I hope I’m not hurting her._  
  
Your mind darts back to another version of this. _One that took place on the third day instead_. Where Chloe dared you to kiss her. You blush and force your eyes back from side eyeing her. It hurts, but it’d be _super wrong_ to try and… manipulate, or force her to be interested in you. You just _hope_ it’ll come naturally. _Like it always does._ If not…  
  
Well, whatever. You slip on the clothes, they fit like an old memory at this point, setting you at ease. “Ta-daa~” You say with a little wave of your hands.  
  
Chloe turns and grins at you. “Lookin’ sick Max! A few piercings, a couple tats, you could be a thrasher yet!” You freeze awkwardly as a dorky comment about a mosh pit comes to mind. Ehhh. Maybe you’ll leave that one in the not-past. “Let’s go get that breakfast before it gets cold now, ya?”  
  
“Ah- uh- Thanks, yeah.”

 

≅≅≅

  
You’re not quite full when you finish breakfast, you shared a plate meant for one person after all, and Chloe tends to have a voracious appetite. _Voracious? Big word_. Once you’re both finished, she walks over to the sink with a sigh. “I’m just gonna give these a scrub real quick to keep her off my ass. You can take a look around if you want Max.”  
  
You smile at her and go to find her hall mirror. A face that’s a little more familiar than before stares back at you. Your eyes are still a bit gaunt, your frame a bit more lean, but you feel more like yourself with your hair back to normal and wearing some familiar clothes. The changes to your body remind you how different everything is, and your mouth sets into a determined line as you plan your priorities. _Things are moving differently. Not necessarily faster or slower… but like the lady said. Differently. I_ have _to figure out what’s going on with these differences, I_ have _to take Jefferson and Nathan down before they hurt anyone else, and I_ have _to figure out a way to deal with that storm._

 

Current Point _\- October 9th, 2013, around 10:00AM_  
  
\- Photographs -  
October 7th, 2013, 9:47pm. In hallway of hospital, no clothes yet, and holding “borrowed” phone.  
  
**End of Chapter One - “Tutorial”**

  
**[] Any other goals or objectives you’d like to set? Write in.**  
  
I’ll probably do a bit of experimenting over time with how I want to structure the days. Consider this your “morning segment” though. Feel free to write more specific instructions under any pre-made options.  
  
Edit: To be clear. That is to say you can't just select *all* of these options and do them all this morning. If you note you're postponing something for a later specific time though, that's fine.  
  
**[] Talk to Chloe  
-[] About Timeline differences  
\--[] Any specific questions? She can’t cover _everything_ that’s ever happened.  
-[] About Rachel  
-[] About Jefferson  
-[] Write In  
\--[] While Driving Somewhere?  
\---[] Where?  
\--[] While Sitting Down?  
  
[] Poke Around Price Household  
-[] Reveal Surveillance?  
-[] Look for new stuff?  
  
[] Begin investigating  
-[] Go to Blackwell  
\--[] Interview Students? Who?  
-[] Go to the junkyard  
\--[] Beeline for the grave?  
\--[] Explore  
-[] Somewhere else? Write-in  
  
[] Write-In**  
For any other courses of action, or for any things you’d like Max to keep in mind while going about any actions.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Part 1 - Tutorial


	9. 2.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [x] Plan Slow and Steady  
> [x] Take another photograph for use as a save point for today in case things get bad. Take a second almost identical one as well; one to keep on our person and another to hide in a location in case ours gets confiscated or destroyed.  
> [x] Poke Around Price Household  
> -[x] Look for new stuff, anything that might seem out of phase with our normal timeline. Lack of winestain, noticeably different pictures, etc.  
> \--[x] Check that the surveillance is still there, note where camera coverage is, any microphones, etc. Don't reveal to Chloe yet; if she finds it independently and questions us, mentioned the house could be bugged.  
> [x] Talk to Chloe  
> -[x] Ask her how the weather's been, any light questions that help us make sense of this timeline without being too personal. Continue until she's finished, then sit her down for the following;  
> \--[x] "Hey, so I know...things are weird. Trust me, I'm not super comfortable with what's going on myself...and I know it must be hard for me to just suddenly...appear right back into your life. I...b-before we start today, I was wondering...w-was there anything you wanted to say to me? Tell me? I p-promise I won't get mad, or anything. I'm sure you have questions, too."  
> \--[x] Be ready to rewind if this conversation goes bad.  
> Proposed by Spector29  
> Markala, 7ime1ock, Spector29, Teen Spirit, veekie, DragonByte

 

 

**Start of Chapter Two - Witch**

  
_Okay. Step one, is David still a paranoid freak?_ You surreptitiously turn around and lean against the hall mirror and glance at the “smoke detector” out of the corner of your eye. Sure enough, the actual lights of the smoke detector case don’t appear to be on. _Because it’s just an empty shell with a camera inside._  
  
You abruptly push off the wall and stride into the kitchen, glancing quickly at the smoke detector above the fridge. _Lights off._ Chloe gives you a questioning look that you deflect with a shrug and smile. You sidle up the stairs and head into the upstairs bathroom, before sliding out as flat to the wall as you can. _And yup, barely noticeable hole bored in the middle of this painting. He couldn’t even be bothered to make it not crooked. Cocky._ You retreat back into the bathroom and then walk out and stand in the hallway, looking at the aerial photograph of Arcadia Bay hanging on the wall. _You can’t go home, huh?_  
  
The rest of the cameras would be a bit too obvious to check. He _may_ see you appear out of nowhere from Chloe’s room but… well, you’re hoping they’re all used to that after Rachel Amber. At least he won’t see you checking out his secret surveillance system. As far as surveillance systems go, while it _is_ intrusive and extremely fucking gross that he installed it without Chloe or even _Joyce_ knowing, it’s also… kind of a shitty security system, honestly. He can only view the feeds and their recordings from his laptop in the garage, and they don’t have any sound recording capabilities at all.  
  
Chloe’s voice rings from downstairs. “Yo Maxo! I’m done!”  
  
“Up here Chlo-oh!” You say with a grin.  
  
“That doesn’t even make any sense.” The bluenette says, bounding up the stairs with a grin of her own.  
  
“Can we go to your room for a sec?” You ask.  
  
“Uh, sure Max.”

 

≅≅≅

  
“So here’s the thing…” You _briefly_ explain the mechanics of hard photojumping to her, likening it to a sort of ‘save point.’ Comprehension dawns on her face as you tell her about the ordeal to get a picture at the hospital and explain that polaroids are ideal.  
  
“Oh!” She says, smacking her fist into her hand. “You wanna take my dad’s old camera?”  
  
You _do_ , but you kinda feel bad that you have to push for it this time around. “Um. If you don’t mind?”  
  
Chloe snorts with a rueful smile. “‘Course I don’t mind Max, not like I’m using it. I bet… I bet he’d have wanted you to have it, too.”  
  
You smile back. “Thank you, Chloe.” You say simply.  
  
Camera in hand, you turn it on yourself to take a selfie. “Hold on, lemme get in on this!” Chloe says, and butts up right next to you, arm around your shoulder.  
  
No reason not to, you guess? “Okay, say cheese…” She groans and sticks her tongue out at the camera.  
  
_Click._  
  
“And one more…” You say.  
  
_Click._  
  
The two photographs print, one after the other. You make sure to note which is which. After a couple minutes they’ve both developed. _Oh my God._ Chloe’s giving you bunny ears. _In both of them._ “Chloooeee!” You say plaintively.  
  
The blue haired girl laughs at you, but otherwise holds her silence. You just stick your tongue out at her before turning to her desk, groping around her drawers for a sharpie. _There we go._ On the backs of the polaroids you write:  
  
_October 9th, 2013. 10:36AM. T1. Rachel’s Clothes, Will’s Camera, One other Photograph._  
And  
_October 9th, 2013. 10:36AM. T1. Rachel’s Clothes, Will’s Camera, Two other Photographs._  
  
You’re a little hesitant about the ‘Timeline 1’ markers, you don’t wanna jinx yourself into getting involved with another alternate timeline… but better safe than sorry, and after everything that’s happened you’re not super inclined to hold out on the existence of jinxes anymore. The first polaroid you slip into a back pocket of Rachel’s jeans. _What to do with the second…_  
  
You turn to Chloe abruptly. “Where do you stash your weed?”  
  
Chloe looks back at you with an overly dramatic pissed-off expression. “What, you a cop? Fuck off.”  
  
You roll your eyes, but can’t suppress the giggle she manages to drag out of you. “Over here Max.” She says.  
  
You watch her push aside some of the boxes in the crowded corner of her room next to her bed. She then… _carefully dislodges a piece of the wall?_ “Rachel had this _sick_ knife that her parents got for her.” Chloe says. “Gave us the chance to set this little hidey hole up.”  
  
Sure enough, there’s a moderately sized shelf in there. “I installed the actual shelf.” Chloe says proudly.  
  
“You’ve always been handy.” You say, slipping an arm past her to put the first photograph in the wall. She just grins back and seals it up again.  
  
Alright, question time. “So Chloe. Um. How’s the Two Wh-” You pause. _Wait a minute._ That picture of Arcadia Bay on the wall. “Uh- Hold on. Come with me?” You say, and without waiting for a response bound up and into the hallway again.  
  
“What’s wrong Max?” Chloe steps out of her room and into the hallway. You’re glaring at the aerial view. Something is _different_ but you can’t put your finger on what. You’d never bothered to memorize this picture.  
  
“Something’s… different. Do you know when this was taken?” Chloe looks at it appraisingly for a second.  
  
“This one? I think some chick with a drone was selling these not long after the Blackwell school year started.” She answers. You frown.  
  
“So it’s recent…” You think for a moment. You guess you _have_ been gone for five years, this is probably a valid question to ask. “Has anything… changed in Arcadia Bay?”  
  
Chloe blows out a sigh. “Max… I don’t know what would be ‘changed’ for you, y’know?”  
  
_Ugh._ You rub your forehead and glare at the picture. Could it be… the docks? They _seem maaybe_ busier than before? “How’s the, uh, fishing industry?”  
  
Chloe gives you a _look_. “The fishing industry?” She asks, her tone flat.  
  
“B-bear with me.” You look at the picture again. “Like… did the Prescotts buy the harbour just to shut it down?” You figure that’s as good a place to start as any.  
  
Chloe gives you a slightly confused look. “The Prescotts... “ She says, as if trying to place the name. _Wait, what?_  
  
“Y’know, like Nathan?” You say.  
  
She purses her lips and finally shakes her head. “I don’t know any Nathans, but I guess I did hear about some rich family buying up the harbour… like half a year ago maybe? I guess that could be them? It was just gossip from my mom, but it didn’t _sound_ like they were shutting it down, and apparently fishing has been _extra_ good recently.”  
  
You try not to let your alarm show on your face. _She… doesn’t know Nathan?_ You guess you get why she wasn’t in danger yesterday, but… _how could she not know Nathan?_  
  
“You good, Max?” She interrupts your thoughts.  
  
“I-... Ya. I just need to… think about this a bit.” You try to assure her. She looks a little skeptical, but shrugs. “How’s the, uh, weather been?” You prompt, giving the photo one last look before starting downstairs.  
  
“Uhh. Other than that weirdass snowstorm last night you mean? Fine, I guess. Nothing too weird.” You sigh as you make your way into the living room. _Same winestain, nothing out of the ordinary._ You plop yourself down onto the couch. _Ow._ It’s old, doesn’t have quite the same cushiness as it used to.

 

 

Current Point _\- October 9th, 2013, around 10:50AM_

Photographs

 

_October 7th, 2013, 9:47pm. In hallway of hospital, no clothes yet, and holding “borrowed” phone.  
October 9th, 2013. 10:36AM. T1. Rachel’s Clothes, Will’s Camera, One other Photograph. (In Chloe’s weed stash)  
October 9th, 2013. 10:36AM. T1. Rachel’s Clothes, Will’s Camera, Two other Photographs._

 

Is there anything else you wanna ask on the topic of timelines before you move onto seeing if there’s anything she wants to say to you?  
  
**[] Write In**  
“No” is a valid answer, and feel free to mention anything specific you’d like to withhold or get across when hearing her out. If you'd like to plot out some movements for the rest of the day, that's A-OK as well. I won't confirm or deny "random events," but I will say that stuff is only really likely to happen _to_ you if you're moving around.

 

 

 

 


	10. 2.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was just a fairly minor prompt for any questions like those I thought the voters might have, they just submitted some more questions for Chlo.

Chloe flops down next to you on the couch with a grunt, sprawling her legs out and apparently not bothered by the lack of springiness under the cushions. You start. “So… there’s some _weirdness_ with the way things- uh. With the way I know things, I’m gonna ask some questions now if you don’t mind? Just to get a clearer picture.”  
  
She shrugs. “Shoot.”  
  
“Right. Just to be _super_ clear, Joyce works at the Two Whales Diner, and David is a Security Guard at the school you used to go to, Blackwell Academy?” Chloe raises her eyebrows at you.  
  
“Actually Joyce just won the election for President of the USA, and Step-Dick has become a children’s therapist.” She says, irony heavy in her tone.  
  
You give her a _look_ and say “ _Chloe._ ” She grins.  
  
“Right, yeah, sorry. Yeah those are right, Mom still does all the work at the Two Whales, Step-Douche is finally helping my mom out with money, and I got kicked out of Blackwell the week I met Rachel.” Her nose turns up at the thought of David. Interesting, so that’s all in-line. You know Chloe’s mentioned interacting with Nathan in the, um, not-past, but you guess he must’ve been not around even then?  
  
You lean back, chewing on your lip thoughtfully. “Can you… talk about some of the people there? They might be… familiar.”  
  
She nods slightly. “Alright, but I wasn’t exactly known for being a social butterfly.”  
  
“No?” You gasp in mock surprise, earning another tongue stuck out at you.  
  
“Let’s see... there was Drew and Mikey North? Never super got along with Drew, but he wasn’t bad. Mikey was a friend of mine.” She starts. You shake your head. You knew _of_ them from… Chloe in other times, but they weren’t directly relevant. “Uhh… Steph Gingrich?” Another head shake from you, same as the Norths. Chloe scratches her head. “Shit, well… what about Victoria Chase?”  
  
You sit up a bit more. “Ya, I know Victoria.”  
  
Chloe snickers, “Piece of work, right?” You give a small smile back.  
  
“So who’re Victoria’s friends?” You ask.  
  
“You’re aware I’m… not really up to date with the _latest_ in Blackwell gossip?” She replies.  
  
You shrug, “Doesn’t _super_ matter.”  
  
“Right. Well, I think she had a couple cronies in uh… Taylor Christensen and… Courtney? Something? Waters maybe?”  
  
You nod. “Courtney Wagner. Right, that’s normal.” Chloe frowns a bit at the phrasing of ‘normal.’ “She’s kinda the Queen Bee of the Vortex club, right? Is there a… uh. King, to go along with that?”  
  
Chloe leans back into the sofa, lolling her head up at the ceiling. “Not really, she runs it like she’s the dictator for life of her own personal Roman Republic, Ave Chase and all that. According to Rachel, at least.”  
  
“Someone oughta call Brutus…” You giggle. Hm. It sounds like Nathan’s _never_ been to Blackwell. That’s a _danger_ out of the way, but… ugh. _Time Travel._ Why do you have your powers if there was… never any moment for you to gain them? Like, the fact that you have them at all is a Paradox, right? A result from an event that never happened? You _guess_ you _did_ have them when you soft photojumped back into the past to try and save William, but is that the same? A mental shrug. You’ll think about it later.  
  
“What about someone named Warren Graham?” You ask, stretching out a bit.  
  
Another shrug. “He was in my grade before I got kicked out. Probably still there now? Rach never mentioned him.” You nod, that adds up, he’s probably having an easier time without Nathan there too.  
  
“And Kate Marsh?” You ask, though you’re honestly not too hopeful about thi-  
  
“Oh man, Kate! Fuck yeah I know Kate!” Huh. Okay? You give her a slightly bewildered look but motion for her to continue. _Not_ really the reaction from Chloe you’d expect to…. Kate. “Ya, she goes to Blackwell, she’s one of the cooler people there, only one I’ve hung out with at all since Rachel- uh. Y’know. We smoke together sometimes.” She pauses. “And that’s cool in _my_ book, not Victoria’s.”  
  
…  
Kate Marsh. _Smoking?_ With _Chloe?  
…_  
  
Unbeholden to your askance expression, Chloe continues. “I’m not really into the kinda new age stuff, but she’s super chill to hang out with, super sweet too, which can be a nice break.” Well at least the super sweet part fits. But… new age stuff? Smoking? With _Chloe_?  
  
“That’s a- uh. Huh. Hm.” You mumble. Huh. “Huh.” Chloe shoots you an eyebrow raise. You fumble to explain. “That’s pretty, um, _different_ from the Kate Marsh I know. But like. Super sweet, blonde, uh…” You try to think of something that sounds like it’d _fit_ with this ‘new’ Kate that the one you knew had. “Likes tea?” You try.  
  
“ _Hah!_ Yup, that’ll be her.” Chloe barks out a laugh. Hm. Victoria and her actions come to mind.  
  
“And is she… doing okay?” You ask, trying to be casual.  
  
“Uh. Yeah I think so, why?” Chloe looks at you sharply. _I guess this Kate is one of Chloe’s only friends right now._  
  
“Oh, um. Nothing. The Kate I knew wasn’t… doing very well but- You’d know! Believe me, you’d be able to tell if she wasn’t.” You try to reassure her.  
  
Chloe looks at you a second longer before settling her gaze elsewhere, still a bit of a sharp look though. “If you say so.”  
  
You gather your thoughts and barrel onto the next topic. “Alright- uh. Not to sound like a broken record or anything, but I’m asking again because this is _super_ important. You’re sure you don’t know _anyone_ with the last name Prescott? Or even with the first name Nathan?”  
  
Chloe frowns and snaps a look at you. “ _No_ Max. My memory’s pretty fucking good, I’d _tell_ you if I knew them, alright?”  
  
You raise your hands up defensively. “Right, sorry Chloe. Just- It’s a Prescott’s fault I got saddled with all the… bullshit that’s come with these powers.”  
  
Her frown holds on your for another moment before she nods and leans back. “Anything else?”  
  
You think about what you wanted to bring up next. Your mouth works up and down, the pit of guilt in your chest that’d been dormant all morning weaseling it’s way back up. You scooch a bit closer to Chloe, which she allows.  
  
“Hey, so I know… things are _weird_. Trust me, I’m not _super_ comfortable with what’s going on myself… and I know it must be hard for me to just suddenly… _appear_ back in your life. I-... b-before we start today, I was wondering… was there anything you wanted to say to me? Tell me? I sw-... I promise I won’t get mad, or anything. I’m sure you have questions too.” She’s quiet as you go on, and for a few moments after.  
  
Finally, she snorts. “Stuff to _say_ to you? Max…” She turns to look at you. “This is all just… _beyond_ fucked up, y’know?” You cringe and nod. “Like- here. Let me paint this picture for you.” She stands up, gesticulating. “My dad _dies_ , you _disappear_ the day after for _five years._ I get a new g- uh. Best friend. _She_ fucking disappears. Then you just _crawl_ in my window, crying, with motherfucking _superpowers_ that can ‘Oh, _maybe_ bring her back but also _maybe not_.’ Like. Max. _Seriously_?” She pauses, gritting her teeth and searching for words. You’re frozen on the couch, just looking at the ground. “Like… how am I _supposed_ to be reacting? You say ‘bad shit’ keeps happening to everyone. But Max, like…” You feel her walk over to you, and _see_ her kneel down in front of you. “ _What_ bad shit, Max? To _who_? You’ve clearly done _some_ stuff before and talked to-” An uncomfortable look flashes across her face. “ _Other_ Chloe’s. But suddenly you’re here, and without full knowledge- _any_ knowledge of why?”  
  
She stands up and paces across the room, looking out to the backyard. “I just- It’s _scary_ , Max. I don’t know how many times you did things before you wound up here. If this is your _first time_ doing all of _this_ …” She waves her arms, indicating _everything_ , then looks back. There’s a kind of palpable… almost _frenetic_ fear in her eyes. “Then you’ll be going _back_ again… right? What happens to _me_ , to _everyone_ when you go back? I-” Her gaze turns back outside. “I don’t want to just be a… testing dummy for whatever Chloe you stick with, y’know?”  
  
“Chloe I would _never_ -” You start when she turns fully and cuts you off.  
  
“Ya, I know.” She sighs and rubs her eyes. “You’re Max Caulfield, you’d never _intentionally_ do that to someone you care about.” Your lower lip trembles as she continues. “But Max… do your actions match that? How many times have you just _tried_ something, even _risked someone_ , just to see if it would make things easier for you?” She pauses. “You… don’t have to answer. It’s- It’s okay, I’m just…” A sigh. “Ya Max, there’s stuff I wanna say to you, _clearly_. But it’s gonna take time and it _can’t_ all be addressed right now. But please don’t-” Another pause, you see her bite the inside of her cheek. “Just don’t… _make_ me get over these things… I _want_ it to take time. Y’know? I need to come to terms with everything.”  
  
She looks at you. Her whole attitude is so much _different_ from normal… she’s still the smartass rebel you knew, but… she’s taking this a _lot_ more seriously. You guess showing up looking like a corpse made an impression. You set your lower lip and try to convey your sincerity with your tone. “I _promise_ , Chloe.”  
  
She looks at you for a second longer, and lets a small, careworn smile onto her face. “Thanks Max…” She sighs. “Well, there goes almost half the day I guess.” Her smile turns rueful. “Any plans for the rest of it, Maxtermind?”  
  
You gape at her. “ _Max_ termind?” You ask disbelievingly. She grins in response. “That’s _sooo baaad!_ ” You groan, putting your face into your hands.  
  
“That’s what makes it great!” She laughs, causing you groan again, but eventually you fall into giggles yourself. _Stupid infectious Chloe laughter._  
  
After a moment of calming down she turns back to you, her smile a bit brighter than before. “So seriously, plans?”

 

 

Current Point _\- October 9th, 2013, almost 12:00PM_

Photographs  
 _October 7th, 2013, 9:47pm. In hallway of hospital, no clothes yet, and holding “borrowed” phone._  
_October 9th, 2013. 10:36AM. T1. Rachel’s Clothes, Will’s Camera, One other Photograph. (In Chloe’s weed stash)  
October 9th, 2013. 10:36AM. T1. Rachel’s Clothes, Will’s Camera, Two other Photographs._

**[] Explore  
-Where?  
[] Research  
-What?  
[] Talk to  
-Who?  
[] Write-In**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, don’t worry about random events, if they happen, they happen and I’ll hold the rest of a plan’s votes in my back pocket for you. The explore/research/talkto options are primarily suggestions. I feel bad just putting “Write-In” at the ends of posts (should I be feeling bad? Do you like suggested options?) so those are there just to get the ball rolling.
> 
> Also, damn, 10 updates in already, 16k words. I think this is giving me better writing habits, probably healthier to write 1.5 to 4k~ words a day regularly than slamming down 15k randomly when inspiration strikes over the course of a full day.


	11. 2.3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [X] Optimized Gino  
> Originally proposed by Gino  
> Optimized by Spector29  
> Markala, 7ime1ock, Teen Spirit, Spector29, TheRevanchist131, Gino
> 
> I'm tickled by the "optimized" description. Originator speedrun go.
> 
> [x] Optimized Gino  
> [x] "Thank you for telling me this, Chloe. I...you're right. I d-don't know where these powers come from, or why things are different here. A-And I've...I don't know what happens if I have to go back." (cue serious look) "That's why I need to make it right, the first time."  
> -[x] Ask if she really wants in on the full suite of alternate timeline knowledge, warning her that it isn't good and is very personal for Chloe, acknowledging that she wanted time to come to terms with everything. Tell her that if she doesn't want the personal stuff, there's more information we could share to try and keep her in the loop.  
> \--[x] IF YES: Rundown how Professor Jefferson and (formerly) Nathan Prescott were luring in women in order to kill them, potentially including Rachel. We found out, and Jefferson killed Chloe and drugged Max with the intention to kill her. Politely decline to explain further right now unless she starts getting angry, then reveal that through Time manipulation David saved Max.  
> \--[x] IF NO: Respect her wishes, but tell her about how we're worried The Storm is coming; it's the reason we keep jumping back. It kills everyone in The Bay, as long as Nathan doesn't kill Chloe in a confrontation. With Nathan gone...  
> \---[x] Assure her that we will not let her die; it's the whole reason we keep coming back. (ideally teenage romance ensues as a sufficient distraction and segue)
> 
> [x] Head for the Junkyard, while on the way talk about:  
> -[x] Ask if Professor Jefferson works at the school and if he still has that super creepy photo shoot on display.  
> -[x] Ask Chloe if she knows Frank and if she still owes him money.  
> -[X] Inform Chloe that even if her timeline's Nathan isn't around, there's still a chance of somebody hostile in Arcadia Bay who might fight and/or drug us, so be careful.  
> -[X] For the sake of levity tell Chloe how Kate was a super uptight, stressed out Catholic girl. Still sweet and a good friend, but a total 180 from a stoner.

You feel a pang as you look at Chloe’s smile. You can _tell_ she’s changing the subject so she doesn’t have to hear you respond to what she said, but… you have a bit more ground to cover still.

You look away, and carefully start. “Before that… Chloe… _Thank you._ Thank you for telling me this, I-... You’re right.” You sigh and look at your right hand, at the brand new scar...burn… thing that resides there. “I don’t know _where_ these powers come from, or _why_ things are different here. A-And I’ve… I don’t know what happens if I have to go back.” You look up and set your eyes and mouth straight, trying to pour every ounce of determination that you _do_ genuinely feel into the words. “That’s why I need to make it _right_ . The _first time._ ”

She meets your gaze with an almost resigned air. A sheepish shrug, and “I- Thanks I guess Max. I mean, I _appreciate_ it. But you’ll go back if you have to right? I _hope_ we get it right the first time, but how often _do_ things go well the first time ‘round, y’know? Most of us just have to live with it… you’re outside that now.”

You look away. “I’ll- No, _we’ll_ be careful. I _get_ what you’re saying Chlo, really. Hard jumps _only_ if there’s no other option, _not_ to improve on a success, okay?” You hope that you mean that.

She nods hesitantly. “Thanks Max, that’s… reassuring, I guess.”

“Also-... I know you seem- You don’t seem comfortable with the whole… alternate timeline knowledge. But… would you like in on it? I can hit you with the full infodump if you want…” You weren’t sure about this, but it’d be… wrong not to _offer_ , right?

She’s tempted. Hoooh is she _ever_ tempted, you can practically see the gears - _heh, clock imagery-_ turning in her head. She glances at your inquiring eyes. “Sorry, thinking.” She says simply. You nod. She gets like this.

Finally, she grimaces and sighs, then turns to look at you. “Look. I think if you told me _everything_ I’d just be straight up _inviting_ Rod Serling over to scold me on the dangers of wanting to know too much.” _If you’re in danger of that Chloe, then my Twilight Zone episode must have already ended._ “Y’know, someone learning how they die and then obsessing over that.” Her face freezes as she realizes what she said. Her eyes glance down at you. “Uh, don’t respond to that. But with it said. There’s _probably_ dangerous stuff out there, right?”

You nod. She continues, “And stuff that I _should_ be at least _aware_ of?”

You nod again. “So what about no specifics? Tell me what the big dangers are but just… steer me on course for smaller stuff? I don’t really mind non-life and death stuff, but you don’t have to lay it all on me at once.

You sigh. That _will_ probably work… but you’d been hoping to be able to have another person looking for patterns in the _big_ picture. Maybe later. Maybe. You give her a small smile. “Ya Chloe, whatever you’re comfortable with.” She gives a small smile back. “I’ll uh- Well here. Let’s go to the junkyard first, since there’s some stuff I gotta check, that’ll give me time to get my thoughts in order.”

She nods, and a grin splits her face as she dangles her truck keys from one finger. “Gladly! Right this way, Ma’am.” She gestures towards the hallway. You smile and proceed, sneaking only a sidelong glance at David’s security camera hidden in the smoke detector. _I’ll get you later._

 

≅≅≅

 

The only sign of life in the neighbourhood as you climb into Chloe’s truck is a black van that cruises off as Chloe starts to pull out. _I guess whatever’s happening with the harbour is doing the Bay some good._ You remember the neighbourhood being filled with despondent, out of work fishermen sitting out on their porches in another time.

“Let’sa go!” Chloe says with a grin, and hits the acceleration a _bit_ harder than your comfortable with. _Yipee._

Not long after, you’re bumping along the barely-maintained road to the junkyard. You shift uncomfortably in your seat. “Ever plan to get better suspension on this thing Chlo?”

She snorts. “Not likely any time soon. No cash.” You nod. _Frank…_

A thought occurs to you. “So hey Chloe, you said the Kate Marsh you know is a bit of stoner, all new-agey?” This juxtaposition is just _too_ good.

She grins and glances at you. “Ya, _total_ hippie, like full on tree-hugger, you have _no_ idea.” She pauses. “Oh shit, you genuinely have no idea don’t you? You said the Kate you knew was different?”

A wolfish grin crawls across your face. “Think of the most _stressed out_ , born and raised, pure as a pew Catholic girl you can imagine.” A moment of processing, and then Chloe’s jaw _drops_ open.   
  
“No _way._ Kate _Marsh_ ?” You nod, and Chloe starts _howling_ with laughter. “Hoooly _shit_ , oh man, she would get a _kick_ out of that idea.”   
  
You grin, but falter a bit. That’s not _totally_ fair to Kate. “Like, she was still a good friend, and _really_ sweet, but- yes. Total sheltered Catholic kid.” Chloe laughs for a while longer, seemingly more at the imagined reaction of _her_ Kate than at the idea itself.

“That is _hilarious_ Max, you’ve _got_ to tell her at some point.” You look at her sharply, and she grins back easily. “Trust me, if _anyone_ in Arcadia Bay would be chill about superpowers, it’d be Kate. She’s chill about _everything_.”

Well. You’re not so sure about that. “Play it by ear, maybe?” You say meekly.

Chloe just waves a hand. “Sure, sure, whatever.”

Silence for a few minutes. Chloe turns the radio on, quietly though, quieter than normal. It’s… nice. Comfortable.

“So… is there a Mark Jefferson at Blackwell? Photography teacher?” You ask, breaking the quiet.

“Oh my _God!_ You too?” Chloe exclaims in mock anger, your face stays grave, however. “I swear, everyone’s obsessed!” You nod slightly, that answers _that_ question. It’d be too much to tell her about _everything_ around Jefferson. One question can’t wait anymore though.

“Does he still have that _totally_ creepy photo exhibit out front of Blackwell?” You ask carefully, trying not to put _too_ much weight into the question.

Another bark of laughter from Chloe. “ _Oh_ yeah. Every time I drive by I see all the photo-nerds, no offense, just _salivating_ over them! Gah, even Rachel was obsessed.” You cringe, an absurd feeling of guilt swells up in your chest. _No. No. She asked not to, and Mark Jefferson is someone we can take down without even coming into contact with him._

“Haha, ya.” You just respond instead. “It was even worse _going_ there.” Not technically untrue.

“God I can’t even imagine.” Chloe chuckles. She still looks slightly discomfited at the alter-knowledge, but that’s a work in progress.

 

≅≅≅

 

Not long after, Chloe is pulling her truck into _American Rust_ , the junkyard she and Rachel Amber call their own. “Do you think most junkyards have fancy names like this?” You muse.

Chloe gives you a slightly bemused expression. “I guess you gotta do something different like that if you want delinquent teenagers to really make it their home.” You both chuckle a bit at that. Even despite all the shit that’s gone down here, something about the atmosphere of the junkyard is relaxing. The walls of twisted metal and corridors formed by piles of trash lend it a fortress-like air. It feels _secure_.

Chloe hops out of the truck, and you follow suite, a bit more gingerly. “So! What did you wanna do, Max?”

You think for a moment. You wanna check on Rachel’s body, most definitely, but it’s as important to catch Chloe up to speed. “You have somewhere in here we can talk?”

She nods. “Yup! Have a feeling you knew that already though.” With a smirk, she turns and starts leading you to her and Rachel’s shed. You follow with a sheepish grin, you can take the hint that you don’t need to dance around meta-knowledge at least, even if it makes her uncomfortable.

After a short walk, you’re both situated in her and Rachel’s hideout. Chloe’s sprawled out across a dilapidated looking bench with some ratty pillows and a blanket strewn on top, and you’re nervously perched in an uprooted car seat that _seems_ fixed to the ground. Once the hideout is sealed up by Chloe -via pulling closed the corrugated metal “sunroof” and sliding the wooden debris over the doorway- it actually warms up a fair bit pretty quickly. By no means is it _warm_ , but it’s well insulated enough that with two bodies to heat it, it protects from the worst of the October chill.

“So, what else Max?” Chloe drawls. You’d spent a while getting comfortable and just relaxing, but Chloe looks ready to keep going. _She seems more at ease here than she did in her own room._

You pick your words carefully. “So- There’s... something coming to Arcadia Bay. It’s the _reason_ I keep jumping back. A Storm.”

She watches you intently. “I guess it’s not a small storm?”

You shake your head, the car seat suddenly wiggles precariously underneath you and you yelp as you’re sent flailing to the ground. Chloe’s laughter provides a musical accompaniment as you rub your hip. _That’s gonna leave a bruise._ You give Chloe a sour look as you get up to take the wooden classroom chair that’s parked on the wall behind you. “Thanks for the help, Punk.”

“You’re _fiiiiine_.” She waves it away. “So, a Storm?”

“Yeah.” You nod. “It _levels_ Arcadia Bay and ther-... And the damage is… worse than you’d ever expect…” You break eye contact, remembering the gas explosion at the Two Whales that claimed Joyce’s life. You were never able to figure out how to stop that one.

You look back at Chloe, fixing your eyes on her. “It’s the _reason_ I keep going back, to try and _prevent_ it.” After a long moment, she nods.

“When does it come?”

You sigh and look frustratedly up at the ceiling. “It _usually_ comes on Friday, and each day leading up has, uhm. They call them ‘meteorological anomalies.’”

Comprehension dawns on Chloe’s face, she rights herself on the bench, looking at you seriously. “Like the snowstorm last night.” A statement, rather than a question.

“Yes, _but_ , that snowstorm usually comes earlier in the day, before the sun sets. It came at two AM last night.” Chloe’s face sets into that thinking frown you know so well.

“Still… that’s not _that_ far off. We still have to assume it’s on track for Friday.” She looks at you. “Have you tried getting the town evacuated?”

You give a nod, just a small one. “Ya… there’s… a lot in the way of that. The biggest one is that the storm just _shows up_ the day of. No lead up, no wind patterns, _nothing_ that marks a coming storm. It _sucks_ trying to convince people without that.”

Chloe nods absently. “...I might have some ideas about that, but I need to do some research.” Her eyes refocus and she looks at you. “Anything else?”

You nod. _This chair is_ not _comfortable._ “Ya actually. Do you… uhm. Know Frank Bowers?”

Chloe’s face immediately sets into something like a snarl. You’re _glad_ you didn’t bring this up on the road. “Ugh. Yeah. Why, is _he_ gonna be a problem?"

You shake your head. “It- ah. Depends. Do you still owe him money?” She grits her teeth and nods once. “Right… we _can_ take care of that, actually pretty easily if this part is the same.”

Chloe gets up. “Let’s walk and talk, ya?” You nod and follow as she shifts the debris away from the door. Soon the two of you are walking aimlessly through the junk, Chloe with practiced ease, and you carefully picking your steps so as not to lose a toe. “It’d definitely be nice to get rid of _that_ debt. You have no idea how much harder it is to buy weed when you’re on Frank’s bad side.”

You mean, you _guess_ that’s a concern. You look around carefully, but you’re not especially worried about running into Frank here today. Last times it was specifically because of the gunshots and him following you from the school.  “Don’t worry about it Chlo, we’ll figure it out. He can be a… friend. In looking for Rachel.”

She turns a bit to look at you sharply. “Is that so…?” She murmurs. Then abruptly turns and keeps walking… directly towards the train tracks.

“Ah- Chloe!” You yelp, trying to put some force into your voice. She turns and looks at you quizzically, the forest behind her. “Not- uh. Don’t go near the train tracks.” You try to impart the _meaning_ into your words.

She pouts, - _that’s cheating -_ “But _Maaax_ …” and mimes walking along with her arms both held horizontally.

“ _No,_ Chloe.” You give her a _look_ . She holds the _look_ for a second before rolling her eyes and turning away.

“ _Fiiiiiine._ ”

You sigh. It’s _probably_ time to check on… Rachel. “Chloe I think I’m… almost done here. Do you mind waiting at the truck? There’s something _I_ need to check.” She scowls at you for a moment before shrugging and brushing past.

“Fine. Seeya there.”

You breath out a sigh and try to amp yourself up, beginning to move hesitantly towards the burial site. Nathan’s _not_ here this time. He _doesn’t_ go to Blackwell. That doesn’t mean Jefferson wouldn’t take advantage of Rachel, and… do something. But it could _help_.

You’re nearly there. Just turn this corner and-

You pause, and _run_ forward, legs burning from the sudden exertion. You slow as you approach the spot where you’d seen that ethereal doe in another time. _There’s… nothing here._ No scraps of flannel, no disturbed, up-turned dirt. _No stench of rotting miasma._ She’s _not here_ . A cold match of hope explodes into a flame in your belly, despite your internal worries. She _could_ be buried elsewhere, maybe even elsewhere in this very junkyard. But… maybe… there’s something you can do this time. Maybe you can help her?

You jump and turn around, eyes flickering desperately from left to right. _Jefferson’s not here. I’m safe._ A few deep breaths. There. Okay, back to Chloe.

 

Current Point _\- October 9th, 2013, around 2:00PM_

_\- Photographs -_

_October 7th, 2013, 9:47pm. In hallway of hospital, no clothes yet, and holding “borrowed” phone._

_October 9th, 2013. 10:36AM. T1. Rachel’s Clothes, Will’s Camera, One other Photograph. (In Chloe’s weed stash)_

_October 9th, 2013. 10:36AM. T1. Rachel’s Clothes, Will’s Camera, Two other Photographs._

 

**[] Write In**

Anything left to do in the junkyard? If not, give me some evening plans for the duo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Max wasn't quite able to get it in that Chloe's the ultimate reason she's been going back, she was hesitant due to the whole "No life or death things unless they're super huge" stipulation. Not that Chloe dying isn't huge, but Max is conflicted. Feel free to decide for her whether to mention it at an opportune time.
> 
> I'm trying to keep things interesting despite them being kind of a couple of talking heads right now, hope it's not too boring to read.


	12. 2.4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [X] Plan True Time Warrior  
> Proposed by Kkutlord  
> Kkutlord, IonicTiger, 7ime1ock
> 
> -[X] First, focus on mastering Rewind.  
> \--[X] Can you limit the range, target specific things, heal yourself, etc.  
> \---[X] Prioritize mastering this aspect, even if it takes hours to make progress.  
> -[X] If sufficient progress is made, focus on rarely used functions.  
> \--[X] Can you willfully choose where to appear during Rewind, was Time-Stop actual Time-Stop, etc.  
> \---[X] Prioritize successful activation more than mastery.  
> -[X] If nothing urgent or wrong comes up, consider whole new applications.  
> \--[X] Get Chloe's input and toss back ideas.  
> \---[X] Prioritize developing new ideas, only testing those that seem simple enough
> 
> Casually showing up like... seven months fashionably late to my own quest. Cannot imagine this will do wonders for my reader retention, but I wanted to, and am finally in a position to, write more. I do love this story, I think it's some of the best writing I've ever done, and I'm keen to finally continue. Also this chapter sat around half written for almost the entirety of the past seven months. Oopsy.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

“Ah-uh. Hold on Chloe.” The blue haired girl pauses on the step leading up to the driver’s seat. You shiver as a breeze blows by. “I was thinking… maybe I should test- or like… experiment with my powers a bit?”  
  
Chloe looks at you for a moment before breaking out into a grin. “Oh Hell yes!” She bends over into her truck, fumbling with the glove compartment momentarily before emerging triumphantly with a pen and notepad.  
  
You cock an eyebrow as she walks over to you. “What’s that for?”  
  
“Well if you’re gonna be experimenting, you’ll need someone to record it, duh.” She shoots back. She’s seriously excited about this.  
  
You shrug. “Alright, just make sure you give it to me before I rewind if there’s notes you don’t want to write out… again… for the first time…” You kinda wave your hand around and try to explain. “Like- regardless this’ll look pretty weird since I’m messing with time stuff but… save me the trouble of watching you write something out a dozen times? Y’know?”  
  
She nods, watching you fumble around the words with a bemused expression. “Sure Max. Uhh. Let’s sit down and talk for a second, then set a benchmark I guess?” You nod. “We’ll at least try to keep us both synced up.”  
  
You walk a short ways back into the junkyard, Chloe stepping closely behind, humming a [small tune](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tra6IXI55ss) to herself. A disused set of patio furniture ends up being your temporary ‘laboratory’, and Chloe flops down onto one of the chairs, seemingly not caring about the moth eaten, threadbare pillow. “So! You told me about what you can do with your powery-thingy, but what does it, like, feel like?”  
  
You purse your lips. Using your power feels almost conceptual, instinctual even, like trying to answer the question ‘how do you breathe?’, there’s no conscious knowing how to breathe, you just do it. You tell Chloe as much, and you see a flash of annoyance across her face. “Can you at least try?”  
  
You shrug. “Sure.” Twitch. You focus on and snag a few of the threads in your hand, lifting it up to your face and searching for any physical evidence of the threads. “When you were a kid, did your hand ever get tangled up in, like, a web of yarn? Or a bunch of threads? Maybe you were messing a grandparents knitting stuff, or someone on a playground had you putting your hands through one of those cootie catcher things.”  
  
Chloe looks thoughtful for a second, leaning back in her chair and trying to visualize it. “Okay… so that’s how using your power feels?”  
  
You sigh, and shiver as a blast of cool air proclaims that evening is coming. “Not… really? That’s just kinda the feeling that’s always there in the background, y’know? It’s like there’s a web of invisible threads coming from everywhere that are all wrapped around my hand, applying a kinda soft pressure, just enough to make them taut.” You wave your hand around, a half hearted attempt to pointlessly shake off the threads. “They change and different ones are just there as I move around, but they’re not actually affected by anything I can see or do.” You pause for effect. “Except when I do this.”  
  
You wiggle your fingers as if snagging the lines of thread that lead off into the invisible unknown. You’d realized fairly early on that it was purely a mental thing, but the physical movement helps you focus. And looks cooler. “Now it feels like I’m holding all those threads tight, like it was just taut before, but now I’ve got them tensed.” You pause, shifting mental gears so as not to accidentally rewind. “And when I do this…” You spread the fingers holding the tensed threads while mentally unsnagging them. Don’t wanna explain all of this again. “And kinda visualise a… twisting motion? It starts rewinding until I let go.”  
  
You let your awareness of the threads fade back into the background as you flop into a patio chair next to Chloe’s. She’s just finishing scribbling out a basic version of what you’d said. She glances up at you, bright blue eyes burning with curiosity. “Have you ever followed any of the threads, if that makes sense? Like seen where they lead?”  
  
A shake of your head. “No, it doesn’t quite work like that from what I can tell. They’re just… there. They change as I go to different places, but it’s not like… a distance thing I guess? It’s hard to explain.”  
  
The blue haired girl nods, not put off. “You said before that you’ve pretty much figured out how much you can rewind, but have you exercised the power?” Exercised? You’ve used it certainly. She picks up on your confusion. “Sorry, I mean exercise like working out. Like do you think if you practice with it a whole bunch you could rewind further? Or get finer control?”  
  
You start to shake your head but hold yourself. The first version of the week you’d gotten your power feels like a distant memory. You suppose it was about two months ago now. Could you say, honestly, that you know your power has the exact same limitations as after you’d first gotten it? You know the answer. In that first week sometimes trying to go further than thirty seconds back had wound up with you having a nosebleed. Chloe’s continuing to scribble notes as you finish your thought process. “You’re probably right Chlo. I- I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that myself.”  
  
Chloe smiles easily. “What can I say? Chloe Price, suuuuper genius.” You giggle as she pulls her best Wile E. Coyote impression. You almost give a physical start at the warmth and affection you suddenly notice in your chest. This is how things should be. You settle down with a smile. Chloe continues. “So! Let’s do that!”  
  
You look at her a moment. “What, right now?”  
  
“No time like the present!”  
  
You rub your eyes and groan. “Chloe just because I have time powers doesn’t mean just saying the word time makes everything a witty joke.” You open your eyes to see her forcing a pout, to which you respond with an overly impassive look. The stalemate holds for a few more seconds as both of your faces turn a bit more red, before you both relent simultaneously and break into giggles that echo through the junkyard.  
  
The next few hours… well. They kinda blow, honestly. You start small, rewinding just 30 seconds back over and over again. It seems like your powers at least have mostly recovered from your stay in the hospital, even if your body is still not exactly in ideal condition. You do thirty “reps” as per Chloe’s instruction. Having to wait thirty seconds each time gets boring, fast, it doesn’t help that essentially, 15 minutes pass for you while literally no time passes for Chloe.  
  
“Okay. Done.” You’re glad for the confirmation and all, and you know this is important but. Damn. This is boring.  
  
Chloe knots her eyebrows for a moment before brightening. “Oh! Huh. I guess that is how it’ll look to me.” She studies you closely. “Any sign of headaches or nosebleeds?”  
  
You just shrug and shake your head. “Nope. This is just kinda mind-numbing.”  
  
She laughs. “I guess so. Alright, let’s step it up then. Gimme ten full rewinds, as far as you can go without insta-migraine-ing yourself.”  
  
You chuckle a little at her portmanteau and nod. “Right, let’s give it a moment then.” And you wait. Chloe whistles. You tap your foot. God this is awkward huh?  
  
“Okay, I’m going back now.” You say, raising your burned hand.  
  
She smiles back. “Seeya on the other side.”  
  
You focus your awareness on the threads around your hand and twist. Everything goes sepia and the world turns back. You shift a little uncomfortably in the deck chair as the threads start digging harshly into your hand. Tighter and tighter. It almost feels like the circulation in your hand is being cut off at this point. Pins and needles spreading slowly up your arm as a sharp pain starts to stab into your skull like a steel spike penetrating your-  
  
You let go of the threads and collapse back into your chair, gasping for air and shutting your eyes tight as the pale sunlight seems to stab right through them into your brain. You curl up in the chair, pulling your legs up and burying your face in them. Dimly you hear Chloe stop in the middle of saying “-ten full rewinds, as far a-” before she’s immediately up and over to you.  
  
“Max! What’s wrong? You good?” She rubs your back, and almost instinctively you nestle back into the touch. Your head has never hurt this bad from rewinding. Headaches and nosebleeds are one thing but this is something else. You just breathe for a few moments before you slowly blink open your eyes.  
  
“Uh. Ow. I think I just rewinded farther than I ever have before.”  
  
Chloe looks torn between her concern and her curiosity. “Like. After the ten reps? Also oh shit hold on, I’ve got advil somewhere in my truck.” She bounces up to head over but you wave her aside.  
  
“No, and no, the advil doesn’t help.” You sigh and straighten out, still squinting a bit at the now… overbright feeling light. “That was my first rep. I think I went back like… almost two minutes? Which is definitely far! But. Ow.”  
  
Chloe looks down at you, that same concern and curiosity battling for dominance over her thoughts clearly expressed on her face. You honestly can’t tell at this point if Chloe is really easy to read, or if you’ve just gotten extremely good at reading her.  
  
“How do you feel? We can head back now if you don’t think you’ll recover out here.” The concern wins out in the end as she looks down at you, squinting in the afternoon sun.  
  
“No, no.” You quickly respond. “I just need… a few minutes.”  
  
Chloe just grins, still clearly excited. “Right! Lemme know when you’re good, I’ve got some ideas I wanna try out!” She eagerly flops back down into her seat and begins scribbling in her notebook.  
  
You have a feeling it’s gonna be a long day.  
  


≅≅≅

Time Travel Ideas

  
Hypothesis: Time travel is rad.  
Testing: Max to try to throw a ball in the air as far as she can, then catch it herself.  
Result: Time travel confirmed rad.  
  
Hypothesis: Can Max choose to only rewind a certain area?  
Testing: Max says she’ll try a few things. She said my questions about whether she can specifically affect certain “threads” got her thinking. She’s going to try to like, only pull on certain threads? She has no idea how to describe whether she can do that though.  
Result: Success? Maybe. Weirdness detected. She had me share a post on facebook, and then did a rewind but like- her description was confusing. Even though the threads were all tense on her hand, when she “twisted” them she focused really hard on letting a few of them slip “through” her hand, and they did. When she finished rewinding she explained the test to me and we checked and sure enough there was a post I do not remember making. We did a control test with the same thing but a “normal” rewind and it deleted the post, so it definitely works! The range right now seems to be entirely random, and when she did it the first time she suspects that the area of effect was bigger even than Arcadia Bay. She doesn’t wanna mess with this more until she’s sure it’s not like. Messing up the whole town’s clocks or something, which would be hilarious. Hopefully she can figure it out better with practice eventually.  
  
Hypothesis: Can Max rewind only certain objects or people?  
Testing: Her only idea was to try to isolate just one of the threads and twist it, in case they do like, correlate to objects somehow. Bit of weirdness there since she says there’s very obviously never enough threads to account for the absolutely insane amount of stuff that would “need” one around her.  
Result: Success??? Veeery weird weirdness. Using that “slipping through” technique from her our last test, she managed to do it, but it didn’t work the way I expected. She says the world “desaturated” as normal and time froze, but nothing she could see was moving or rewinding. Seems like a ghetto time stop in a pinch? She agrees but says it seemed like it had the same time limit as normal rewinding despite her not actually being moved back in time at all. Weird. I bet she managed to get something moving back in time, but it was just like, a worm underground or something. She still has no clue how to figure out what threads correlate to what things, since it’s definitely not ones that spatially “point” towards objects.  
  
Hypothesis: Can Max heal herself or her body with rewind?  
Testing: N/A, essentially same idea as last test but even more granular, she doesn’t think so. (I do, just not yet >;D )  
Result: N/A  
  
Hypothesis: Can Max recreate the time stop she did for Kate once?  
Testing: She doesn’t remember it well, and didn’t have as firm a grasp on her powers, but she’ll try.  
Result: Failure this time, can’t figure out an indefinite time stop. At least we have the budget one we figured out earlier.  
  
Hypothesis: Can Max bring someone into rewind or budget time stop with her?  
Testing: Max grabs me and tries to rewind.  
Result: Failure, Max says rewind happened as normal, aka she got thrown around by me unstoppably moving backwards as she held onto me. Budget time stop had a similar result, minus the tossing around.  
  
Hypothesis: Can Max basically teleport any distance using rewind if she times it right?  
Testing: We drive back to my house, then Max walks into town, rewinding every thirty seconds in thirty second increments, grabs a pizza to… prove she did it, then does the same thing back.  
Result: Delicious, delicious pizza.  
  


≅≅≅

  
While you were right on the one hand about it being a long day, it was also fun. While you and Chloe had definitely talked about your powers in other times, since the first you'd never really had an opportunity to just sit and brainstorm and just… shoot the shit with her about them. You honestly probably spent more time just bullshitting back and forth about dumb stuff you could do together with your powers. It feels like months since you've been able to just… relax like this. It probably has been, really. You think back. Fourteen loops. Five days each. Each one becoming more and more strict with yourself, more and more callous with Chloe. Accepting less margin of error each time, feeling the overpowering need to be aware of and control each variable in play, because you could and you had to and even with all that you had done before that it was  _never enough, never ever enough because try as you might it always ended at the lighthouse or on the road or in the truck rain pounding down and wind threatening to throw you far far away where you can't help Chloe or Kate or._ You start feeling light headed and realize you're hyperventilating and your whole body is shaking under Chloe's thick comforter and there's tears on your face and-  
  
 _Deep. Breaths. Deep. Breaths._ You're here. In Chloe's room, safe. Chloe is too. You try to recenter yourself in the present. Then you realize you… don't know what's coming. You take the thought and examine it, turning it over in your mind. You don't know what's coming and you feel- you feel relieved? There's no variables you really have knowledge of, no one to manipulate into a course you've already plotted for them. You have some meta-knowledge, sure, but so far you've only succeeded in freaking Chloe out by using it. You really do have to just… take this as it comes. Despite how terrifying the thought is, you feel your muscles untense, taut cords unwinding as you sink into Chloe's bed. Chloe glances over at you curiously from her desk, her face illuminated by the blue light of the computer. You wipe your eyes and give her a small smile.  _Nothing to worry about! Just having a panic attack in your bed._  She looks concerned for a moment, but gives a small smile back and turns away.  
  
The pizza you ate, and uh, stole, feels like a ton of bricks in your stomach. You feel more full than you can remember being since this week started. And started. And started. And- well, you of all people get the point. You look over at Chloe again, smiling fondly. Yeah. You may not know what's coming, but you have her. And hopefully too, you'll have this strange new hippie Kate when Chloe takes you to meet her tomorrow. Outside, the moon shines, curiously uneclipsed. You drift off into sleep.


	13. 2.5

"What, no air dolphins Max?"

Rolling your eyes at her, you nonetheless giggle and oblige. How long has it been in your personal chronology since you've done this? Your hand carves through the cool air, it's a familiar, almost soothing caress. Even if it means the wind buffeting you through the window is gonna make your hair a _total_ rat's nest.

It was an early morning for both of you. Chloe had stayed awake a bit longer to catch up online, but had crawled into the shared warmth of the covers not long after. You feel a yawn coming and try to stifle it, but fail miserably. _Yaaaaawn._

Yesterday had been a real test of your endurance, a whole bunch of near constant rewinds and budget time stops, seeing what you could and couldn't interact with, messing with the weird, conceptual-thread-things. By the end of it your head had felt the same way your body did after doing a major workout, back when you'd actually had to take PE. You still kinda felt the aftereffects, but at the same time something in you felt… stronger? Not quite the right word. Closer to more… anchored. Weighted. Relevant? Like you had more mass to push around. Not physically- you almost laugh at yourself. _Nope, still a twig._  

The real confirmation of this had come when you woke up this morning. Chloe was already up, and she'd gotten you to try to rewind into the time you were sleeping. You were out of it, didn't reeeally understand, but went along with it. The threads in your hand gave easily at first, you'd have to try again once you got out of the car (you'd found out the tailbone-breaking way what happens if you try to rewind inside of one), but as soon as you hit the point just before you'd woken up, a new kind of resistance tugged you to full wakefulness. You _could_ still rewind, however where normally the threads were firm, but yielding, _this_ felt like dragging them through a wall of liquid honey. Or something. Would a wall of honey be hard to drag thread through? Hmmmmm, maybe you should get Chloe to take you to the Two Whales. You could really go for some honey toast.

Agh! Bad Max, focus!

Right. Long self-recap short, it was tough to rewind through sleep, but possible. Not that you could rewind long enough to really even catch up on any Z's. Some movement out of the corner of your eye distracts you. Chloe's fiddling with a little gadget plugged into her truck's cigarette lighter. _I wonder why they're called that?_ Her brow furrowed, cheek bitten, eyes half darting between the road and the thing itself, making you... mildly nervous. _But God she's beautiful._ Oh, looks like she figured it out. She taps into a music app on her phone, jostling around in her cupholder, then turns on her truck radio, tuning it quickly. A moment later, loud, if slightly static-y rock is blaring from her speakers. Huh, neat.

After your little rewinding experiment, that morning was similar to the last, minus Joyce barging into Chloe's room. You'd spent some time after waking up… well. No polite way to put it other than 'cyber stalking your not-classmates' really. You'd started with just sitting at Chloe's computer, looking up their Facebook profiles but it became clear from the snarky chirps coming behind you that you were finding a whole lot of nothing of value very quickly. It had ended up with you sat next to Chlo as she managed to figure out and pull up each name you'd given her's various social media. Even ones not associated with their real names, which was kinda freaky. She'd just shrugged, apparently people leave clues to that kinda thing everywhere, if someone had any kind of online presence contextual links and properly keyworded google searches alone could go a long, long way.

You sigh and cast your gaze out towards the bay. Ultimately, nothing had really come of it. Some details were changed, a lack of Nathan meant some parties had been less dangerous, some had been more, somehow. The same girls as were disappeared last time had done the same- _or had the same done to them_ \- this time. Exceptions being Victoria and Kate, though- you check your phone- yup. October 10th. Today's the day they would've been taken. _Ugh_ . October 10th… the date runs through your memories, a reflex. The hard wired checklist of potentials and maybes and what-ifs that make up a day in the life of Hell-Week Max Caulfield. In every timeline something awful has happened today. The sheer variety of absolute bullshit that’s hit you on October 10th would almost be impressive, if it weren’t all so horrific. AlterChloe asking you to kill her. Chloe shooting Frank- _Oh shit. I still have to deal with him this time._ Finding Rachel’s body. Mark _fucking_ Jefferson shooting Chloe and drugging you. Nathan getting killed. _Not that he’s around this time I guess._ Victoria getting taken by Jefferson if you don’t warn her in time.

Yep. Lots to worry about. Or there would be if you were remotely in the middle of it this time! You almost manage to make yourself believe that for a second. Ya, no. Just because stuff is different, doesn't mean it's any less fucked up, and it _doesn't_ mean Jefferson doesn't already have his eyes set on Victoria. Or Kate. _Well, we're seeing her now so… hopefully I can do something about that, no matter how different she is._

The other part of the morning was spent quizzing Chloe about recent and semi-recent world history. You'd started pretty broad, but when Chloe's adamant assurance that there was never a "Mikhail Gorbachev" with a birthmark on his head in charge of the Soviet Union turned out to be…. demonstrably untrue, you decided to focus a bit more locally, and back it up with a bit more Chloe-lead research. You were never any sort of geopolitics or history buff, but almost everything… seemed to line up? To the best of your knowledge? The major difference, as you'd suspected, was the Prescotts, but even that was a bit of a dead end. The Prescott foundation in your timeline was old money, they did some real estate deals and developed some properties, but in the grand scheme of corporate America, they were small fry. Not so here it seems. The Prescott Foundation was the presiding paternalistic corporate force overseeing over a dozen other corporations (some of which had too their own sub-corporations) in fields varying from resource extraction to medical technology to agriculture to surveillance, the list went on. They have their fingers in all sorts of pies, and from the looks of things their purchase of the docks and fishing businesses of Arcadia Bay had been excellent for the community. Not only had the funding gone straight to the local fishermen, but even the average yield in general had increased significantly. The infusion of cash from Trillium Fishing Int. had been a bit of a boon for the town.

Despite the fanfare though, you can't help but feel something stinks. And it sure ain't the stronger than normal fish-smell. _Though that's been pretty gross too._

"Yoooo, Earth to Max?"

"Huh, wha-?" You zone back in to Chloe leaning across the gear shift, her face close- oh my god very close- to yours. Her expression is that tight mix of concern and amusement, when she wants to make fun of you but is worried you're going through it a bit. Pretty familiar face on her at this point. You smile easily and quickly lean forward, lightly bonking her forehead with yours. "Sorry Chlo, was zoned out a little."

"Ow, hey. No worries. You good?"

You nod. "Ya, I'm good."

"Cool, we're here anyway."

You turn and- oh. Yup. There it is. Blackwell. As stark and imposing an orange as any brick building has ever been. Which isn't much colourwise, but the memories more than make up for it.

You feel and hear Chloe hop out of the truck. "Cmon, let's go Maximus. Kate's waiting for us at the dorms."

"Right! Sorry, coming." You hop out of the truck and start towards the dorms, Chloe pacing to catch up.

You pointedly do not look at the art exhibits are you go by.

 

≅≅≅

 

Out of habit you slow down as you pass Principal Well's quarters, remembering him out there, watching for students. Drunk. _That's not fair to him, the Prescotts had him under so much pressure._ Still a shitty example though, not that the kids were much better either way.

The building looms at you as you slow down to take in the familiar courtyard. Briefly, you wonder where Samuel is. _Probably tending to his squirrels somewhere._ _Also, quit that building! No looming!_ You remember talking Kate down from the ledge up there, and the first total time stop you'd experienced to allow that to happen and- God. The most nerve wracking part. Trying to talk her down with no rewinds. Your heart jumps to your throat as you remember the sheer, pitted terror of the first time. Almost losing her. Not knowing what to say and not having any chance to do it over. It was- God your eyes are watering now. _Breathe._

"Hey, you okay?" Chloe's sidled close to you. Calloused hands on your shoulders giving you a reassuring squeeze.

"Just- yeah. Tell you later?" You sniffle and wipe your face with a sleeve as Chloe lets go to check her phone.

She nods. "If you need to, sure thing."

You nod back, and the two of you continue on.

 

≅≅≅

 

The dorms are mostly empty this time of morning, which means either Kate doesn't have class, or she's skipping. The latter seems less likely, but you try to remind yourself that this Kate has apparently lead quite a different life to the one you're familiar with.

Chloe leads you right down the hall to… ya. Kate's room. Same as the first timeline. You idly wonder who's in your room, was it left waiting for you?

As you approach the door, you let yourself be a little excited. You've missed Kate. In other loops it quickly became your policy to be an invisible guiding hand for her. Some well placed gossip against Victoria. Some light blackmail. A tipoff for a sympathetic teacher or two. Just the things to get her the help she needs, when she needs it. Chloe up and barges in in her Chloe way, and you follow a bit, pausing awkwardly at the doorway.

"Jerry, you're not gonna believe this!" Chloe half-shouts in a… surprisingly accurate Kramer impression.

Kate's voice answers. "Kraaaamer! WhaaAAaat is it?" Your eyes widen and you feel your mind buckle a bit under the sheer anachronism of hearing _Kate Marsh_ respond to _anything_ with as much enthusiasm as she put into that Seinfeld impression. Fuck time travel and alternate realities dude, the real brain bending is when you see your straight lace Christian friend turn into a Seinfeld fan.

"They just legalized marijuana in Oregon Jerry! Do you know what this means? Do you?!"

"What, does it mean the cops can join everyone else and get high as well now?" 

"No Jerry! It means I can finally get rid of that massive envelope of weed George scored me before he died!"

"Ah yeah… God rest his soul."

"Amen."

You can't take this anymore. "George is dead!?!" You shout with real, genuine incredulity.

The two of them look at you for a moment, clearly caught up in their bit and surprised by your outburst, before looking back at each other and falling to the ground laughing.

You laugh too, but at the same time start to finally take in the room. It's surprisingly close to the first timeline's Kate's room, but with a lot more personality and less… depression mess. Her bed is made simply, a green comforter over a pile of pillows, a few stuffed animals- _rabbits, awh_ \- are thrown on top for good measure. Her desk has a collection of books, lots of stuff on plants, but a few fictional stories and a couple poetry collections- _Milk and Honey_ \- and most notably, not a Bible in sight. There's a few potted plants scattered around the room. In your minds eye you can tell they're in the places that get the most sunlight throughout the day. And then your eyes fall on Kate herself. Still chuckling on the floor, she's rolled herself into an upright position. Her hair is down. _First time seeing that._ To your surprise it goes down to her mid back, though it's quite voluminous around her head, falling pretty evenly down. She's wearing a simple, loose, light green blouse, long sleeved, but she has them rolled up. Her jeans are cuffed and plain, rolled up a bit past her ankles, if the blouse were a little less nice looking you'd say she looked ready for a major day of gardening. 

It's a strange feeling, taking her in. She's very different, but in a way she's _so_ Kate. Her expressions and gestures, the way she holds herself, the almost unnervingly firm eye contact that belies her gentle manner. This Kate is outwardly happy, and clearly more comfortable in her skin than the Kate you knew. You wonder if "your" Kate would have eventually ended up like this one. Ah. Moot point for now it seems, no matter how callous that is.

Kate smiles kindly up at you and starts to talk, knocking you out of your reflection. "Sorry we- oh man, neither of us can do a good George so we eventually came to the conclusion that he never shows up because he died." 

Oh God, you don't know how easy it'll be to get used to this version of Kate. She keeps talking though. "Come in! Chloe seemed so excited to introduce you, prove to me that she _does_ actually have more than one friend."

Her voice is teasing, but it still has that same gentleness that just… infused Kate. Where with the Kate you remember that gentleness was so easily turned to timidity and fear- _through no fault of her own_ -, this Kate seems to embrace it as a warm kind of strength. Honestly? For all the weirdness, it makes you really, really happy to see her doing this well.

A smile you didn't notice is lighting up your face as you step into the room, and let the door close behind you.

"Ouuuh, closing the door Max? You got something planned for us?" Chloe calls out at you, an exaggerated sultry edge to her voice. You feel yourself turn absolutely beet red. You were _not_ just thinking about how cute Kate looks when she's so happy and confident and-

Kate saves you, fortunately. "Chloe, don't tease the poor thing, she looks like a deer in headlights!"

Chloe's head pops up. "Up yours, she can take it! She'll warm up quick."

These two have a… dynamic. You're a little jealous. You see Kate's frozen in place, as if she's thought of something. She turns to you and opens her mouth, then squints, furrowing her brows and turning back to Chloe. "Hold on. Uh, Max…?" She leaves the unspoken question in the air.

Chloe grimaces and shoots you a guilty look. "Ah, uh- ya. Max Caulfield." And suddenly Kate's posture has totally changed. Back upright, brow knit. All hard edges converging at acute- _ha, cute_ \- angles.

You shrink back against the door, suddenly wishing you'd left it open. Kate doesn't speak, but just hums in what you guess- _you don't need to guess Max it's all over her face-_ is displeasure. Chloe's face is a touch panicky as she looks from one of you to the other.

"But, uh! It's all good now!"

"Mmmm."

"We had um. Ya. A talk, we talked! And we sorted it out our, uh-"

"Mhmm?" 

"Ya our feelings! And uh."

"Hmmm?"

"My feelings! And I'm not! She's not! We're!... Agh!"

Chloe throws her hands up in disgust.

"I need a smoke. One of your wanna come with?" The way Chloe puts an emphasis on the 'one' tells you she wants to explain _something_ to one of you out of earshot of the other.

Before you can respond, Kate speaks, her eyes still locked on yours. "Sure Chloe, I'll meet you out there, just have to roll." Her tone is… almost icey. Not the kind of edge you'd ever heard on Kate's voice. _Oh man, how many times am I gonna think something like that?_

Chloe looks helplessly between the two of you for a moment, already standing. You break eye contact with Kate and offer a silent plea with your eyes. _Please don't leave me with her._

Chloe shrugs and looks away, shaking her head. "Fuck it." And leaves the room, already fishing her cigarettes out of her pocket. You nervously turn back as the door shuts behind her, slamming louder than you remember it doing when it closed behind you. To your surprise, already has a little footstool in front of her as a surface- _you didn't even hear her move-_ as well as some rolling paper and- _sniff_ \- yup. That's weed. She's watching her hands but her movements are practiced, deft. You don't doubt she could do this with her eyes closed.

"Chloe's told me about you." You jump a little. Her tone has cooled slightly, less icey and more… matter of fact.

"Not good things, I guess?" You venture.

She glances up at you with a pointed look. " _No."_ And looks back down.

You look down at your feet and turn it into a nod. You've never been… shamed by someone else for ditching Chloe.

After a moment, she doesn't seem interested in talking, so you start, "Look, I don't-"

She cuts you off with a glare and stands up, apparently finished with the joint. "Maxine. Max. Whatever you prefer. Chloe is _not_ in a good place. I'm doing what I can for her and I've talked her through some tough shit. I'm sure you had a real heart to heart, some real truth and reconciliation style shit. But listen to me. Your friendship back then meant the world to her. And when you dropped her like that? Life went on, Max. She met Rachel. Eventually she met me. I don't know why she's being so easy-going about you just popping up again, but clearly you're still important to her. So I'm gonna respect that, and not tell you to leave the poor girl alone." She steps closer to you, and you shrink back further. Something in the back of your head mutters. _Holy shit am I being menaced by Kate Marsh?_ "But I want you to give me one. Good. Reason." She jabs towards you with the joint on each word for emphasis. "Why I shouldn't be worried you're just gonna up and ghost her again, and leave her another pile of emotional baggage to sift through on top of _literally everything else in her life._ "

She leans back away from you and crosses her arms. Joint still held unlit between two fingers. Oh. Uh. You expected her to go join Chloe now but it looks like she wants an answer _now_.

 

≅≅≅

 

**[] Write In**

Oof. Chloe must not have painted too flattering of a picture of you. Hopefully there's something you can say to set her at ease? Whatever you write here will set the tone for your talk with Kate, but it won't be the end of it regardless. Next couple updates will be shorter, this one just kinda grew far beyond how large I expected it to be.


	14. 2.6

Kate frowns and quirks one eyebrow up in irritation as your mind races. It’s almost an uncanny-valley feeling, seeing this new Kate there staring you down. Most of all because it  _ makes sense _ . If the Kate you knew hadn’t been traumatized and bullied, the way you’re being treated right now makes sense as a logical endpoint for Kate. An assertiveness for her place in her friend’s life and a deep, deep well of love for them, especially the ones she believes are vulnerable.

After a moment of withering under her glare, you come to a decision. The sunlight from the window starts to go dark as you flex your right hand, awareness of the threads immediately blossoming to the forefront of your mind, and raise it imperceptibly. You’re careful to be subtle, you’re not interested in freaking her- Well. That’s not true. You fully intend to freak her out. You just don’t want to raise your hand and make her think you’re gonna be violent.  _ As if I could take anyone right now. Or even before, honestly. _

You begin the mental motions needed to activate your rewind when several things happen at once. First, both you and Kate takes notice of the suddenly fading sunlight, and she starts to glance towards the window, your rewind falters as your gaze is torn to follow hers. Suddenly-  _ OOF- _ a strong push from behind makes you give a high pitched yelp and careen forward towards Kate who you realize can’t see you falling.

“Shit! Sorry!” Chloe’s panicked voice is already yelling as you tumble into Kate and fall to the ground with her into a pile of tangled limbs and pained exclamations. You somehow manage to hit your bruised hip from falling off that chair, the sore spot from being flung around by rewind-Chloe,  _ and _ the still tender car accident scar that winds it’s way up past your ear.

You groan and roll yourself off of Kate, who seems surprisingly nonplussed about you being thrown into her. 

Chloe looks  _ freaked out _ . “You guys need to come outside,  _ now _ .” Her voice is unsteady, and her lit cigarette dangles forgotten in her hand, ash falling unnoticed to the floor. You’re immediately filled with a harsh pang of worry, and with only a quick, serious glance at Kate you hoist yourself up and start striding to the door. Chloe tears ahead immediately, not noticing or not caring that her long legs are giving her a significant speed advantage. You hear Kate jogging to catch up behind you. The two of you get to the door Chloe’s holding open at the same time and follow her out. 

_ Huh. It’s… not dark out here, but like, dim. _ Chloe jogs out into the courtyard, and then points over past Blackwell into the sky. You follow and-  _ that’s… not right. _ It takes your mind a moment to process what you’re seeing into something workable. Something that jibes even with your own fucked up reality you’ve become accustomed to.

Hanging over Blackwell, looking for all the world like a pair of burning eyes, are two solar eclipses. One unscheduled solar eclipse was crazy enough, and though you’d seen the two moons on October 10ths when you weren't… otherwise occupied, both paled in comparison to this.

Two moons, each ringed by the-  _ a?-  _ sun's corona, blotted the morning light from the sky. You watch them for a moment longer and then blink and force yourself to look away.  _ Can't rewind eye damage. _ Instead you look at Chloe, who's staring at the ground, thinking, occasionally chancing quick glances up at the anomaly, and Kate, who looks more befuddled than anything. 

"Why… are they like that Chloe?" Kate asks finally. The taller girl jumps at Kate's voice jolting her out of her thoughts.

Chloe purses her lips and says simply, "I don't know," and sighs, pausing for a moment before continuing, "Unscheduled solar eclipses just don't happen. Like. They  _ don't. _ The sun and moon move across the sky in an incredibly predictable pattern, and I keep up with this shit, there is literally not a chance in Hell I'd not have known about this."

You hold your silence as they go on. Kate points at the anomaly. "Okay. Cool. Unscheduled solar eclipses are weird, got it.  _ But why are there two of them?"  _

Chloe just snorts, "Fuck if I know. I can't think of anything that'd explain that. I've heard of dumbasses seeing Saturn up there and thinking it's a second moon, but this…" She looks up for a moment again, "this _ isn't _ that. This is closer to like, science fi-" She stops suddenly and wheels around towards you, cobalt blue eyes meeting yours. She doesn't say anything, but the unasked question is clear.  _ I mentioned the anomalies, but not only is this more than just snow, it's like a combination of the other ones.  _ You nod once, slowly.  _ I wonder if there's been animal deaths. _

Kate saw all this, of course, and looks between you and Chloe, "What do you mean? Science fiction?" She steps towards the blue haired girl. "Chloe, what do you  _ know? _ " Alright, it's time to reign this in, you think, maybe this will do part of the work to help convince Kate. 

"Hey Kate," you say, she turns to you, "let's go inside and keep talking. Me and Chlo have some things to explain to you."

For a second she stays still, suspicious eyes gauging you, but she nods and steps back. You watch her make one last glance at the sky and wordlessly start making her way inside. 

You turn to Chloe and cross your arms, and her face immediately morphs from an expression of deep thought to one of sheepishness. "I thought you said she was chill about everything?"

"She is- I- She's just… protective, okay? Sorry. I'm sorry Max. I was excited for you two to meet, I wasn't really thinking about what I've said about you." You hold her in a  _ look _ for a moment. 

"Fine. But you've gotta take me to get honey toast at the Two Whales tomorrow." 

She grins, and the slight tension in the courtyard melts, "Sure thing Maximo. Inside now?" 

You nod, and start to follow her inside. You pause though, and look once more over Blackwell. Huh. From this angle, just in front of the door, the eclipses almost look like a pair of wide pupiled eyes, staring down at you. You shake your head.  _ My life has enough BS nature symbolism going on, no need to add space symbolism to it too. _ The dorm hallways echo as the front door slams shut behind you.

≅≅≅

A man sits at his desk. On that desk are two pieces of paper, disturbing the fine layer of dust that has settled over the room. On those two pieces of paper are words in a language his secretary could not read. She thought it was English, but when she tries to remember what it said, the thoughts are fuzzy. She types out a text onto her burner cellphone, another failure. 

The chair the man sits in is hard and utilitarian. A spartan take on a usual spinning office chair. The twin eclipsed suns streaming in through the window give him no pause. If anything, it's a nice break from the usual bright, uninterrupted sunlight. All of this is far from his mind.

The papers he reads concern a company asset. Among other qualifications, said asset is known for his ability to know things. Were it anyone else, the man would dismiss the report out of hand. This asset is well documented however, he is unreliable, but admittedly never wrong.

One of the pieces of paper had already made the rounds through the company analysts. Foggy imagery cross checked against GIS Map Databases, dissected by experts both literary and oneirological for meaning, compared and contrasted to past, current, future, and potential company operations, and future proofed against every other timeline model they had. The second piece of paper was then printed, recording their findings.

This man did not get where he was by ignoring warning signs. Checks and limits? Inconsequential. Laws and sanctions? Trivial. But when you're speeding towards a sign that says, 'Bridge out of service,' you cannot rely on your infrastructure and knowledge to save you. Everyone is bound by the law of gravity. The man grins. Almost everyone.

He stands and without so much as a backwards glance towards the twin, burning eyes in the sky, he leaves. His secretary gives him a tight smile on the way out. He knows her true affiliation, it might as well be written on her face. He enters the elevator, and sends it directly to the ground floor. When it arrives, the doors open, and no one steps out.

≅≅≅

An hour later you're sitting on Kate's bed as she stands and quizzes you about timelines. She took the demonstration surprisingly well.  _ I mean, she did still freak out a bit, but… she bounced back.  _ What's been going less well is the infodump. You didn't totally read her in on everything about how much the universe seems to have it out for Chloe, or the Jefferson stuff, but she's been picking at the omissions, trying to wheedle out of you what you're not telling them.

You finish trying to talk about the Kate you knew, hoping to get a laugh out of her like Chloe suggested. Chloe herself gives a chortle at the image, but Kate wheels around and fixes her with a glare. 

"Do you really think this is funny, Chloe?" Her voice is quiet, similar to how you remember your Kate speaking, but is filled with an intensity you've never heard. "Chloe, this  _ isn't Max, _ have you thought about that?"

Uh. What?

"What are you talking about?" Chloe asks, head tilted. 

Kate gestures at you behind her, "This  _ isn't your Max _ , Chloe, she came from a world with people we didn't know, where stuff happened  _ really differently. _ Have you asked her about childhood memories? What if they're different? What if the only other person that would remember them was  _ replaced,  _ like,  _ killed _ by this… person?"

Whoa, what? This is going way too far, "Kate, that's not-"

She spins on her heel, eyes burning. "What,  _ Max?  _ Not fair?" Her voice is mocking, utterly un-Kate-like. "Was it  _ fair _ to erase the Max that Chloe,  _ my  _ Chloe knew for your own vanity? Was it  _ fair  _ to consign that Kate you knew to whatever the Hell happens when you do your 'hard jumps'? You have this power and you're literally just bumbling around with it, making  _ everything  _ worse, for  _ everyo _ -"

"Kate." Chloe's voice pierces through Kate's tirade, enunciated overly clearly, barely covering the fury evident in her voice. Kate flinches back from you like she's been struck. You dimly realize that you're shaking and there's tears in your ey- oh actually they're streaked down your whole face. You hadn't noticed.

Chloe's standing now, you see through the blur and sting of your tears. She hasn't moved from where she'd been sitting on the floor other than to stand, but Kate seems to shrink back all the same. "Shut the fuck up," She says.

"Chloe-" Kate tries.

"No, shut up. Where the fuck are you getting this shit? Me and Max may not get what's going on, but you're  _ infinitely _ more full of shit than us if this is what you got from everything she's said." Chloe starts to get impassioned, gesturing and pointing as she talks. "Like seriously,  _ everything  _ worse, for  _ everyone? _ Fucking  _ who Kate? _ At what point in everything she's said was she not trying, and usually, fucking  _ succeeding _ at trying to help me, you, and the whole town? Your mechanical understanding is total bullshit too, by the way. She explained it pretty fucking clearly, but let's try again. When she uses a hard photo jump, it puts her back to the moment she took the picture. Yeah, when she went back and shit went crazy this time something in the past changed, but up till that point? We  _ have _ talked about it, and everything  _ was  _ the same. I dunno what happened while she wasn't talking to me, and you know what? I don't especially fucking care. I might never have even found out, so who gives a shit? And if everything was the same before those five years, then as far as I'm concerned, this  _ is  _ Max. It is  _ hella _ fucking ignorant of you to assume I haven't thought about this shit. Fuck off Kate."

The room is quiet, silent save for your sniffling and Chloe's heavy breathing. Kate looks like she's somewhere between wanting to cry, scream, and faint. Fuck. You did this, didn't you? Okay. Uh. Fuck. You can fix this just- 

Chloe sees you raising your hand, "Don't, Max." You and Kate both look at her sharply. She pointedly only looks at you, and gives you a weak smile. "Let's go, huh?" You nod numbly, and feel like you're floating as you push yourself off of the bed and stagger over to the doorway.

"Chloe, wait!" Kate nearly shouts. Chloe freezes in the doorway. "I-"

" _ Goodbye _ Kate," and a gentle shove pushes you out into the hallway as Kate's dorm closes behind Chloe.

≅≅≅

The truck is quiet after you both get in, both of you emotionally processing the encounter.

You sniffle and clear the mucus from your throat, "That… didn't go great," you say.

Chloe snorts quietly, looking at her lap, then back up at the now uneclipsed sky. "No shit, eh?" She looks at you and scoots across the conjoined seats that make up the front cabin of the truck, bumping her shoulder into yours and letting you lean against her. "I'm sorry Max, I had no idea she'd flip the fuck out like that." 

You rest your head on her shoulder.  _ Warm…  _ "It's okay," You say simply. 

You look up as Chloe grins down at you. "She's probably just jealous, anyway."

You knot your brow. "Jealous?"

"Uh, of the crazy time powers? Duh?" 

Oh yes, right. What else would there possibly be to be jealous of? You burrow your head more into Chloe's shoulder. Nope, you've got no idea.

"Do you want me to jump back to this morning? You ask. You physically feel Chloe tense under your head. "I- I don't have to."

She's quiet for another moment before she speaks, "No… not yet, okay? I mean, I can't stop you if you wanna but… I dunno. Let's try not to have you jump back till we've done the week once? You were as surprised as I was at that eclipse thing, maybe we can avoid more surprises like that... by getting surprised by them once. Y'know." 

You nod and feel her shoulder relax under you, and use it as an opportunity nestle in further.

You spend a few minutes like that, recovering. Being with Chloe like this feels… healing. It's grandiose but you've got no other word that feels right to describe it.

Finally Chloe speaks, "Okay, time to let me go nerd, I've gotta drive before the school lunch starts."

You forcibly nestle yourself in further as she gently tries to pull away. "Nuh uh, sorry, you're my prisoner now." You look up at her with the best condescending smile you can muster, it's still weak, but it's enough to make her chuckle. 

"Alright then, I guess if you don't want that honey toast we were talking about we'll just stay here~" 

Immediately you sit bolt upright and fasten your seatbelt, then twist the threads back barely a second and say, "Let's go."

Chloe jumps as you instantly appear to go from leaning on her shoulder to upright and buckled in, then a second later bursts into laughter. "I knew that'd get you! So predictable Max."

You actually join her laughter at that. Predictable, huh? Chloe might be the only person in the world capable of predicting a time traveller.

≅≅≅

 

_ Current Point: October 10th, around 11:20am _

 

**[] Go to the Two Whales**

**\--[] Go straight there**

**\--[] Do something else on the way? (Write in)**

**[] Stick around Blackwell for a bit**

Possibly risky, David is around somewhere, and if you're with Chloe, or if he's seen you on the house surveillance footage, he might get on your case.

**\--[] Try to find someone you know (Who? Write in.)**

**\--[] Daring daylight "disability" dollar heist**

**\--[] See if you can somehow re-register yourself as a student without your parents… or luggage… or hospital discharge papers. A second base of operations in the dorms could be useful.**

**\--[] Something else? (Write in.)**

This is probably possible with rewind, but would be tiring.

**[] Hard photo jump to this morning**

Heya, next couple updates might have more things outside your control happening than usual like happened this time. I'd suggest not making any bighuge plans, and to try to facilitate that I've limited your options a bit. Still some write-ins available, but they're optional and smaller in scope.

 

I wonder what's going on with Kate?

 


	15. 2.7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [X] Go to the Two Whales  
> \--[X] Check the alley behind it when you get there. The homeless lady's probably not there, but who knows.  
> Proposed by Tjakari  
> Tjakari, Antix_Shadows, 7ime1ock, Pyran

The sights of the bay whip by as Chloe puts her truck through the paces. You don’t exactly _love_ going at such high speeds, but never in all the time you’ve spent in this week has her truck broken down in any capacity, so you settle your stomach and try to enjoy the scenery. Blackwell isn’t exactly out of the way, but a rather sparsely populated road with a dense forest on one side does separate it from the main cluster of suburbs.  
  
Even as Chloe slows down as you arrive at the more populated part of town, that feeling of uneasiness you’d attributed to an upset gut from the speeding doesn’t fade. Your banter falls off until you’re only giving one word answers as you try to place the feeling. Your time doing loops of the week had an emotional curve that was something like panic, then paranoia for a long while, then maybe a kind of boredom? And then… resignation. This feeling reminds you of that paranoid stage. Disconcertingly, it most reminds you of the gut feeling when Jefferson would stalk you as you discovered Rachel’s body. Chloe shoots you an uneasy glance as she notices your withdrawal from the conversation.  
  
“You doing okay Max?” She asks, jarring hard on the wheel to turn into the Two Whales parking lot.  
  
Your stomach does another flip from the sudden motion, unrelated now, you realize, to the ever-growing uneasy feeling in your gut. You swallow and say, “I- Um. No, not really? I think, at least.”  
  
Chloe saws the parking brake’s handle up into place and shuts off the truck, then turns to look at you. “Max. _What?_ ” She asks.  
  
Hm. Yeah that’s fair. “Sorry, sorry,” you say. “Uh, I don’t really think- well. I don’t really _know_ if it’s anything, really, but I have a… really hella bad feeling right now, y’know?” Chloe watches you carefully for a moment as you scramble to find words. “It’s like, we’ve been like, followed? Or stalked? Before during- in other time loops and it’s been a while but this is kind of like a similar feeling?”  
  
Chloe mulls over your words for a moment, then surreptitiously checks all her mirrors. “There’s another truck in the parking lot, it’s light blue, that match anything?” She asks, eyeing the road now.  
  
You shake your head, “No, we never saw his car, but that shouldn’t matter, he shouldn’t even _know_ either of us exist here.” You shudder and fight down the rising tide of revulsion at the memories of Jefferson. _Take the shot._ Nope, nuh uh. You’re going to lock up if you keep thinking about him.  
  
Chloe’s eyes are trained on you now, concern etched in her brow. You try your best to smile but it feels like it comes out shaky. “Let’s just head inside, okay? I- It’ll be fine, I’m probably just being paranoid.” You don’t really believe that, and you’re pretty sure she doesn’t either, but at least with some toast, _oh and coffee_ , inside of you, hashing it out should be a little easier.  
  
Chloe looks at you doubtfully, but shrugs and probably comes to the same conclusion you did. “Sure thing.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
The two of you hop out of her truck, and start making your way to the front of the diner. You pause before the stairs though as something occurs to you. “Ah! One sec!” It’s a distant memory at this point, you hadn’t looked for her after the first time, too focused on ‘speedrunning’ the week for interactions that didn’t directly contribute to saving Chloe. It’s a long shot, but maybe-  
  
You turn the corner to the back of the Two Whales and stop abruptly. The homeless woman isn’t there, but it looks like her belongings are. Or… were. You hesitantly step forward and kneel down, scooping up some of the ashes. _Cold…_ Then step back and look at the spot where she normally sat. Harsh, black scorch marks adorned the concrete on the ground where she sat and on the wall behind. Even the chain link fence next to the spot had been blackened with whatever heat had burned her small pile of rags and cardboard. _What… what happened here?_ The scorch marks on the wall easily went up a foot or two past your own height, and the ones on the ground were _right_ where she sat, not in front like you’d expect if she’d lit a fire to keep warm. Upon closer inspection you notice too that the chain links that are blackened from the heat are also slightly warped. They must have expanded with whatever heat caused this, and cooled in a way that left them bulging inwards, towards where the homeless lady sat.  
  
There’s probably no answers to be had here. You sigh and take a quick picture of the sight for posterity, and make your way back to the front of the Two Whales, wondering if there’ll ever be answers for all the weirdness you’ve seen so far.

 

≅≅≅

  
Scarcely a moment after the bell over the door announces your entrance Joyce’s voice rings out. “Howdy y’all, welcome to the Two Wha-” She pauses a moment on registering your blue haired bestie, “Ah, well hello Chloe.”  
  
You allow yourself a small smile and step out from behind the taller girl. The shock on Joyce’s face brings you, well, joy. How could you have grown used to that? “Well I’ll be!” She says, a beam splitting the shocked expression. “Chloe _and_ Max! Why, there’s two names I never thought I’d be usin’ together again!”  
  
You giggle as Chloe bristles at the warmth Joyce immediately has for you. _She’ll get over it literally instantly if experience is any indicator_. The elder Price immediately trundles out from behind the counter and wraps you up in a warm hug, which you eagerly return. She holds you out at an arms length then, hands on your shoulders. “Why, you’re lookin’ skinnier than a showpig fed only on gristle! Have your parents been feeding you right?” You feel a jolt of guilt, remembering your comatose parents, and see Chloe freeze similarly just out of sight of Joyce, panic evident on her face. Right. You haven’t really prepared a lie for this.  
  
You force yourself to smile. “Just haven’t been able to keep weight on, Joyce.” She frowns and starts to say something in a chiding tone. Hm. That’s not really how you want to start this. _Twist_ the threads and you force a giggle, “They just don’t make breakfast in Seattle anywhere _near_ as good as you do here Joyce.” You smile at her as she eagerly accepts the flattery.  
  
“Let’s get to work fixin’ that then, you two go take a seat.” She leans down and looks you in the eyes with a warm smile. “Why don’t you come on over for dinner tonight Max, if Chloe hasn’t already invited you? We ought to catch up.”  
  
You grin at the prospect of a home cooked Joyce meal. “Of course Joyce,” you say easily before Chloe grabs your hand and yanks you towards the second last booth against the wall. _Your_ booth. You take your seats, same sides as always, and you smile for a moment, reminiscing about something that never happened, that only you remember.  
  
“What’s up?” Chloe asks, she must have noticed your expression.  
  
You smile, “Just remembering. This is where I first showed you my powers, the first time.”  
  
To your surprise, she leans in, interested. “How’d you do it?”  
  
“Well…”  
  
You spend the next half hour telling the story, and eventually re-demonstrating some of the tricks for Chloe. She gets a hoot out of the hilariously roundabout way of proving you have time travelling powers, but can’t deny it’s effectiveness. Eventually your favourite, honey toast and bacon, is served, along with a black coffee, to both Joyce and Chloe’s surprise. And an extremely short time after that, it’s warming your belly and providing you with a shot of strength and optimism you sorely needed.  
  
The diner’s been pretty quiet all afternoon, no down on their luck fishermen to fill the empty seats after all. So when the entry bell does ring, you shoot a quick glance up to see who it is. Instantly, your heart drops from your chest like an overripe apple and your stomach tightens and clenches painfully in on itself. Why, of all people? Mark. Fucking. Jefferson. _Was_ he following you? It didn’t make any sense. Why would he? He stretches and blinks, adjusting to the slightly dimmer diner interior. Before hawkishly looking around and making his way to the counter.  
  
“Heya Joyce, could I just get the usual? I’ll be hanging around for a bit before the kids need me again.” He says with a _charming_ smile.  
  
Joyce answers it with a genuine smile of her own, “Coming right up dearie.” Jefferson nods to her and pulls out his phone, scrolling through social media or emails or whatever sick fucking sociopaths do on their iPhones.  
  
You watch him with wide eyes, feeling for all the world like a rabbit cornered by a coyote. Joyce’s kindly voice finally calls out to him, snapping his attention away from his phone, that razor sharp, instant reaction, part of what makes him such a great photographer, and so physically dangerous. “Here’s your joe dear, three cream, three sugars, for someone sweet as you are.” She doesn’t _know._ None of them do.  
  
He grins easily back at her, all teeth. “Thanks Joyce, always a pleasure,” his voice drips with sugar-coated kindness, and in a fluid motion he drops a fiver into the tip jar. Jefferson turns, precise as always, and starts walking _towards you-_ no. No. Past you, to the farthest back bar stool but as he passes you and Chloe and his fucking _cologne_ washes over you something catches his eye- _you_ \- and he slows to a stop.  
  
Chloe is glaring daggers into his back, as she should even if she doesn’t even _know_ yet. He smiles at you, the same predator’s grin, all teeth, practically licking his lips. “That’s a nice camera.” He says, gesturing to William’s camera looped around your neck. To anyone else his tone is personable, conversational, maybe a little kindly condescending, however that’s expected for a teacher and celebrity in a small town like this. But you’re intimately familiar with every one of his tics. The word ‘nice’ chosen specifically, a way of drawing you into conversation, it sounds like he maybe knows _of_ the camera model, but not enough that you couldn’t leap into the conversation to try and impress him with your knowledge. The slight lilt at the end of ‘camera,’ a double down on the trap, turning the statement into a half-question, if you chose to read it as such. Probing, looking for vulnerabilities, nipping at your haunches.  
  
The fear that percolated in your belly on his appearance into the diner curdles over into white hot rage as you unconsciously dissect his strategy. You think of Rachel, spunky and headstrong from what Chloe’s told you, trivial for someone like this to wrap around his finger. Victoria, raised by a family that knows the power of _connections_ , and what better opportunity for a young family scion than to be close with _Mark Jefferson_? Poor, poor Kate. He didn’t need to manipulate her. Only take advantage. Take advantage of a person already in the lowest place of her young life. You almost laugh at the last person that you realize rounds out the list. _You_. Little naive Max. So excited by the prospect of meeting one of the greatest photographers in the world. Thinking he would give her the time of day if he didn’t somehow have exponentially and explicitly more to gain from their interactions. Another wave of cologne hits you and acts as an accelerant for the intense anger that you’re now sure is showing plainly on your face, if his confused and calculating expression is anything to go by. You could end him right here. How many potential weapons are around you? Knife and fork. One into his eye, one into his throat again and again and again- No. Messy. Your clothes go back in time with you, anyway. Empty mug? Something about glassing him with the hard ceramic cup sounds _thoroughly_ appealing right now, who knows if you’re strong enough to do any damage though? _His_ full mug? It’d be hot, but not scalding, on account of the three cream he takes it with. Eugh. Sugary sweet, just like him. At this point you think the adrenaline would be more than enough to take your hand to his fucking throat and claw it apart but-  
  
No, Max. _No._ Restraint. You’ll talk to Chloe about this. These thoughts are dangerous. You rewind a few moments with a little twitch. Always dangerous when someone’s watching you this closely, but you’ve been stony and still since he said his piece. You grit your teeth and look up, jaw muscles clenched.  
  
“ _Thanks_.”  
  
Jefferson looks like he doesn’t know whether to feel bemused or offended, but you see the moment where he shifts back into his strategic ‘cool teacher’ person. A calculated chuckle, condescending and just a _bit_ dismissive, enough to make you feel you can talk to him in the future but that he’d be able to hold this awkward incident over you, he must be taking you for an awestruck superfan or something. Then he stalks off to his empty stool while there’s still time left in the school lunch break.  
  
After a moment, Chloe leans in. “Is he bad news? I saw you rewi- no, don’t worry, he didn’t notice, I was looking for it- I saw you rewind there.”  
  
You start to shake your head, but pause and just let out an explosive breath you’d been holding instead. “Not bad news right now. But yes. Bad, very very bad news. I’ll tell you later,” you say.  
  
You and Chloe finish off some of the extra bacon from the morning slipped to your table ‘free’a’charge’ by Joyce in tense silence as Jefferson drinks his oversweetened coffee. Eventually, with no further fanfare or even a glance back at you, he leaves. You let out yet another breath you’d been holding and loosen your white knuckle grip on the table. He’s gone. Back to Blackwell to plot about some other kids for now. So why hasn’t your intense, instinctual ‘I’m being hunted’ feeling faded? No… Why has it gotten _stronger_?  
  
Your eyes dart around the room. Then you whip your head to the window. Nothing out of the ordinary? You examine the SUV that happens to be passing by in exquisite detail but nothing rings a bell. Huh? Oh. Chloe’s saying something. Focus, Max. Refocus. Recenter. You’re here.  
  
“Max!” Chloe says loudly, and you blink, suddenly feeling more present in your body.  
  
You grimace and look down, “Uh. I- Ya. Sorry. Zoned out. That ‘being followed’ feeling is really, really, _really_ freaking me out.”  
  
“What, even after Jefferson left?”  
  
You nod, “Ya, I-” Hold on. You gape at her. “How did you know tha-?”  
  
She grins at you and leans back, spreading her arms cockily to either side of the top of the booth. “Come on Max, gimme some credit. You freak out about having been all ‘followed’ by some stalkery dude before, then you react like _that_ when Jeffershit shows up here? I can put two and two together. That dude been perving on students?”  
  
Ha. Of course, she’s smart. She probably figured it out the moment he walked in. You nod gravely. “That’s an understatement.”  
  
Her smile falls a bit, but that only serves to remind you of that omnipresent anxiety gnawing at your gut, something is _wrong._ Very, very, very very _hella_ wrong. A momentary flash of every nerve in your body screaming ‘RUN’ at the same time has you launch to your feet, knees banging the table and rattling the cutlery. You breathe heavily as you force your muscles to relax and Chloe looks up at you with wide eyes. God, you’re freaking her out, just _calm down, Max._  
  
“Hehe, uh. Sorry about that. Do you mind if we go? I just _really_ feel like I need to get out of here,” you say. You feel like a tense coil of nervous energy, practically bouncing in place, eyes darting from dark shadow to dark shadow. Gee, there’s a lot more shadows around than you really think about normally, even in daylight.  
  
Chloe looks at you warily, before shaking herself out of it. Eyes a bit clearer she stands and unpockets her truck keys. “Ya for sure, let’s go.”  
  
You try to calm down enough to at least go over where you want to go. The lighthouse? It’s familiar and meaningful to you, but _if_ you are being hunted, you’d be putting your back against a wall. Or rather, against a cliff edge. The forest? You’d get lost, unless… you could go to you and Chloe’s old fort? It’s easier to hide in a forest, but that goes for someone pursuing you as well, it’s a touch remote but you and Chloe’s fort isn’t _super_ _super_ far from the Blackwell grounds. You _could_ go to Blackwell itself. At this point you know the campus like the back of your hand, all the nooks and crannies and maintenance tunnels that only you and Samuel are probably aware of. David could still be more hindrance than help though, not to mention the other students. The junkyard? It is pretty fortress-like, and you have a feeling that the concrete shed at it's heart would not only be secure, but probably a pretty comfy place to sleep with the right supplies. It's remote though, if you do need help, it's not likely anyone would hear you. Speaking of comfy, you _could_ just go back to the Price household. Who’d follow you in there? _Oh,_ and David’s surveillance system… it could be good to catch… whatever’s following you, if you are being followed and aren’t just finally losing your mind, on tape. God, you almost feel dirty for thinking of it, but you could just leave town? Maybe hit up a motel on the highway somewhere. You'd be far, far away from anyone you knew, but hopefully also far away from anyone that might be looking for you.

≅≅≅

  
_Current Point: October 10th, around 12:10pm_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [] Is there anything you’d like to do before you leave the Two Whales? (Write In) (Optional)
> 
> Where do you ask Chloe to take you?  
> [] The Lighthouse  
> [] The forest, then into it to you and Chloe’s old fort  
> [] Blackwell  
> [] The Junkyard  
> [] Chloe’s house  
> [] Leave town for the night  
> [] Somewhere else? (Write-In)
> 
> This update’s delay brought to you by me getting really into Divided Loyalties and writing an omake for it only about a thousand words shorter than this update itself.


	16. 2.8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that if you find this and are interested in joining in, you should head over to https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/originator-life-is-strange-urban-fantasy-quest.53811/ and make an account! Posting this on AO3 is primarily meant to function as an external public copy, and as a way of sharing it with the greater LiS fic community that doesn't really exist on SufficientVelocity, for ease of process I do not accept commands in the AO3 comment sections, and merely post votes for posterity.

You look quickly from corner to shadow to bush as you and Chloe stride to her truck. For once you’re a little bit ahead of the taller girl, which you suppose _does_ make sense with how purposefully you’re power walking. _Ow, coma-legs still not ready for much exertion._ Hm. If it _is_ Jefferson you’re in no condition to fight him again. You barely scraped through the other times- _and didn’t, once-_ Where’s the least likely place for him to try something? Blackwell? _Uh, no. Obviously not._ Chloe’s house is probably your best bet if he _is_ following you. But- Jesus. _Why?_ He obviously didn’t recognize you in the Two Whales. Do you have some kind of magic Jefferson sensor? You feel like at another time you’d laugh at that. Yup, Max Caulfield, superpowers include time travel and sensing one (one) serial killing high school teacher, great. No, something tells you that’s not it. That same ‘something’ is also telling you insistently to hurry the fuck up. No specific thing to hurry the fuck and do, just hurry the fuck up, in general. Different from the ‘ _RUN’_ instinct in the diner. Right.   
  
A light tap from the inside of the truck window you’ve been staring into for the past minute has you blinking rapidly and getting your bearings. Oh, Chloe’s already inside and the truck’s on. Yup, all things you were very aware of this whole time, your head is one hundred percent in the game.  
  
You obediently pop open the door and clamber inside. “Sorry about that. Uh, how about we go to your place again? Maybe take a different route from normal?” You try.   
  
Chloe watches you for a moment. You try your best to control your breathing and, y’know, just kind of ignore the sense of immediately impending danger that’s lurking just over your shoulder. Oh, you’re hyperventilating again. Smooth, Max. You refocus, _again_ , and look at Chloe. She’s doing that ‘look slightly to the left of the person she’s thinking about and screw up her brow while trying really hard to decide what to say’ thing again. Her mouth opens as if to start- but she just exhales and squints to the side even harder. You’ll be here for a while at this rate.  
  
“Chloe,” you say, “what is it?”  
  
She blinks once and looks at you, nearly seems to drift off into phrasing-contemplation again for a moment, but then sighs and shrugs. She still seems wary of what she’s saying, but she tries anyway. “Are you having a panic attack, Max?”  
  
You frown and start to say, “N-,” but hold yourself. You think about what you felt in the diner, and then at the truck window. Huh. “Actually, yeah. Yup. I think I might be having a panic attack Chloe.” She nods, sagely. How wise of her. You _do_ actually giggle weakly at that thought. It’s not like _you’d_ figured it out after all.   
  
You look back out of the windshield and lean back. Have you been shivering this whole time? You try to think about exactly _what_ you’re feeling. “I’m not saying that the freaky-following feeling isn’t _real_ , but um. Now that you mention it, I think that this might be me in a not-great headspace.” You’re trying to be more aware of your breathing, deep breaths, same exercises as normal. In your peripheral vision you see Chloe unbuckle her seat belt, then slowly slide herself over to your side of the seat. She holds herself still next to you for a second, then sets her mouth into a determined line, nods once to herself, and leans in.  
  
You flinch as two leather clad arms awkwardly side-hug you, but a moment later find yourself relaxing slightly into her warmth. “Um, Chloe?” You say, and flinch again as you feel her jump at the sound of your voice.  
  
“Uh, I- Sorry. Rachel used to have, like, hella panic attacks, especially after we got into some harder drugs. She told me that doing this helped and that when I, uh- me trying to… talk to her about it didn’t. Is this okay?” Her voice is quiet, you think she’s trying to be soothing? Well, ‘trying’ is kind of uncharitable, you _are_ feeling soothed. You relax back into her, making the side-hug slightly less awkward, as far as side-hugs go.  
  
“Ya… ya this is okay, Chloe.” You start, but you frown as you think about her wording. “But uh, I don’t mind if you- I mean. You _can_ talk to me during it about it, I think it’s… good for me to hear your voice.”  
  
“Oh! Uh, okay then.” She sounds surprised, maybe a little guarded. “Do you think you’re, well… panicking because of seeing _him_?”   
  
Your stomach does a little flip at the thought of who she means by _‘him_ ’, but having Chloe next to you, around you, supporting you… it holds you a bit firmer. Your head is clearing somewhat. “Y-ya.... I think that has to do with it, at least partly.” You notice your breathing has slowed to a more reasonable pace, and your heart has stopped pounding loudly in your ears. You nod. “Thanks, Chloe. I-... I think I still feel the whole ‘being followed’ gut feeling thing, but… seeing him kinda put me off the deep end.”  
  
She squeezes you once, tightly, then almost like she’s embarrassed pulls her arms away quickly and looks straight ahead out of the windshield. Yup, that’s definitely a blush on her cheeks. _D’awh, embarrassed Chloe is cutest Chloe._ You frown to yourself, that’s unfair, maybe tied for cutest with every other Chloe. She swallows once, looking ahead, and cranks the gear shift into reverse. “So, you’re cool now?”  
  
You hum, well… “Cool-er, like I said, there’s still something definitely very wrong, but I’m not freaking about it anymore.”   
  
“Cool, cool.” She nods. “So… you still want me to do the cool shake off and detect pursuers circuitous route? ‘Cause I was totally planning one out in my head there.”   
  
You smirk up at Chloe. “Go right ahead, Agent Price.”  
  
With a cheeky grin she glances back down at you. “Aye aye, Cap’n Max.” The truck lurches into gear, and you speed off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are in the trial run of the first experimental chapter split-up. I’m gonna try to take advantage of the relatively small-ish readership aspect and insert an optional vote for the drive.
> 
> [] Write-In ONE SENTENCE describing something you’d like to talk about, discuss, or just banter about with Chloe on the drive.  
> This is not a tally based vote, I’ll pick whatever topic/topics I like best that I feel will fit into whatever timeframe they have to discuss them. This way it minimally impacts my completion of the previous command, but y’all can still influence a little something (and keep the thread popping as a tiny ulterior motive on my part.)


	17. 2.09

Chloe's route first takes you to the opposite end of the Bay, but after a turn onto a dirt road you'd never noticed you quickly lose track of where she's taking you. The beanie-clad punk seems all too happy to show off her vehicular acumen and navigational knowledge of the Bay though, so you eventually just lean back and trust that she knows what she's doing. Suburbs turn to rural plots, which turn into hills pockmarked with copses of trees, which turns into outright forest. The road quality varies significantly, from dirt paths to haphazardly maintained concrete. At one point you exit a dirt road onto a (luckily empty) _interstate highway_ that you cross laterally, through all lanes of traffic, onto another dirt road. Chloe's nonchalance about this is so obviously put-on that it borders on smarmy.  
  
Music had thus far provided a comfortable (if… thrashy) background noise to the drive, but as the last song on her mix-cd comes to a climactic finish, and the itch of ‘I’m being hunted’ starts to scratch again uncontested at the back of your skull, you decide to clarify something she said that you don't remember her _ever_ ever mentioning to you.  
  
You glance over at Chloe. Her posture is relaxed, but her eyes are still sharp, carefully guiding her beloved truck over the uneven terrain with one hand, the other carefully resting on the gear shift, occasionally jiggling it up or down as the road allows. "So," you start, " _harder_ drugs, huh? Who were you partying with besides Rachel?"  
  
A sour expression falls over her face, but she hides it quickly. "For me, only a few times, Rachel thought it'd be fun to show me off at a couple Vortex Club parties, like I'd ever get along with _those_ assholes." She sighs. "Bunch of rich kids in a small town? Prime real estate for all sorts of shitty people. Frank _is_ a shitlord, but he doesn't deal anything harder than weed to high schoolers. The asswipes that the Vortex kiddies know though? No such 'moral compunctions' if you know what I'm saying."  
  
You nod. _This seems like a tender subject._ You gently say, "So Rachel was... more into that kinda thing?"  
  
You see her hand white knuckle on the steering wheel for a split second before relaxing again. When she responds her voice is tight. "Yeah."  
  
Your heart pangs. "S-Sorry to bring it up… I guess it was a point of contention…"  
  
She sighs. "No- I mean, yes it was, but don't worry about bringing it up. I just…" She hesitates and takes a deep breath. "Not many people to talk to about this, y'know? Kate's great but she doesn't love to do talks about real personal shit."  
  
You nod. "Did she like, pressure you to join in?"  
  
"Well-" Another sigh, she shakes her head and takes off her beanie. "Not really, she'd ask if I wanted to join or come with or whatever, but she never _made_ me." You don't comment on the unspoken implication that Rachel _could_ have made her. She continues, "It was more like, dealing with her after the parties. She'd always, y'know, tell me she had a ride back or she'd be staying over at whatever dickbag's house, but then it'd always be the same, a call at two or three AM, all weepy sounding and shit, totally fucking wasted while I try to remember where the fuck she said she'd be since she's too fucking out of it to even give me an address."  
  
You're quiet, just watching Chloe closely. Almost unconsciously, you lightly put your hand over hers on the gear shift. She jumps and grimaces for a moment at your touch, but doesn't ask you to move it. She just sighs. "She- Rachel was… difficult to deal with when she'd been _indulging_ , it was always like, from one extreme to another for just _hours_ some nights." You pull your hand back as she shifts into a lower gear for the steep hill the truck is approaching. "She could get mean, or weepy, or have panic attacks. Or like…" She blushes. "Y'know, like, get _grabby_." You sit stock upright and look straight ahead, blushing too. _Keep it together Max._ "Which don't get me wrong!" _Oh god she's continuing._ "I don't _mind_ being baked for… y'know, but not like that. Not how she was. Never like that."  
  
You both jump as Chloe's phone vibrating in the cupholder breaks the awkward silence that followed _that_ part of the conversation. You try not to think too hard about it as you say, "Uh, should you check that?"  
  
She shakes her head. "Nah, it's probably just Frank bugging me about the money again." She pauses. "Actually yeah, could you check it? He's come to my fucking house before and I do _not_ need him talking to David."  
  
You shudder at the thought of how _those_ two would interact, hopefully something you'll never have to see. Chloe's phone is heavy in your hand, an older model than yours.  
  
_Witch bitch 12:53_  
Hey Chlo u there?  
Witch bitch 12:53  
Can I talk to you and max again? I'm sorry for being a bitch  
Witch bitch 12:53  
Text me when u can?  
  
"Looks like Kate." You report. "She says she's sorry for… being a bitch, and she wants to talk to us, both of us, again."  
  
Chloe snorts, "Fuck'er, let her stew for a bit. She _was_ a bitch to you."  
  
"Awh, Chloe…" _I know Kate, even if this her is kind of… different. Leaving this to sit will just tear her up._  
  
She shoots you a look. " _Really,_ Max?" You nod, earning a snort. "Fuckin' bleedin' heart hippies," she says in an ironic southern brogue.  
  
You stifle a snort yourself and put on your best 'rebel Chloe' impression, "Whatever, _David._ "  
  
Chloe laughs out loud at that, making you giggle in response. "You have _no idea_ how weird it is to be able to make fun of step-dick with you when I've barely told you about him so far." She grins at you. "Anyway, if you wanna _make amends_ or whatever, text her yourself."  
  
"Maybe I will!" You stick your tongue out at her and snuggle down, trying to avoid the headlights from the side mirror that momentarily flash in your eyes.  
  
_You 12:55_  
Hey Kate, it’s Max.  
Witch bitch 12:55  
Oh hi Max. Is everything okay?  
You 12:56  
Yeah Chloe’s just driving.   
Witch bitch 12:56  
Sorry for blowing up at you earlier. It was just a lot all at once and even now idk still what to think about it.  
You 12:56  
It’s okay. Believe me, I know it’s a lot. I think Chloe’s more hurt than me tbh, she seemed excited for me to show you.  
You 12:56  
Oh god she’s gonna kill me when she reads these.  
Witch bitch 12:57  
Lol definitely. RIP. I’ll apologize to her in person. Sorry again.  
You 12:57  
It’s okay Kate. Idk about the stuff you brought up to Chloe but your concerns when we were alone… I get it, seriously.  
You 12:57  
I can’t promise the next couple days will have no emotional baggage at all.  
You 12:57  
But I promise I’ll be there for her through it, and from now on.  
You 12:58  
I don’t reeeaally know what’s coming, but I can say pretty certainly that the next few days are going to be crazy.  
You 12:58  
And helping Chloe through that is kinda why I’m here.  
Witch bitch 12:59  
… that was surprisingly reassuring for a sentence that’s otherwise kinda ominous. Thanks Max.  
Witch bitch 12:59  
I mean like, thanks for taking my concerns seriously.  
You 12:59  
Np! : )  
Witch bitch 1:00  
Emoji, huh? Chloe’s not gonna like that.  
You 1:00  
>:3  
  
You smile to yourself and close Chloe’s phone. Chloe fields a glance at you as you put the phone back into the cupholder. “Done texting with your new bestie already?”  
  
You roll your eyes, “As if, punk. She apologized but she’s still obviously kinda freaked out. I think she needs some space from me for a bit."  
  
Chloe eyes you for a second longer, then shrugs. “Whatever.” You glance back behind you. Nope, still no cars, just a poorly maintained road far as the eye can see, which to be fair is only to the last bend. You pause a second. Something about that thought seems wrong. You go over the past few minutes in your mind… you finished talking with Kate… texted her about stuff…joked with Chloe about David… no, no, after that.  
  
You freeze. “Chloe. How long have we been on this road?”  
  
“Uh, about ten minutes, give or take? We’re almost home now.” She glances at you, taking note of your expression and general pallor. You’re pretty sure the blood’s drained from your face.  
  
“And… there’s no other turn offs or driveways along this path right? Nothing at all like that?”  
  
The punk shakes her head. “Nada, we’ve been flying solo this whole time.”  
  
You look into your side mirror. Then away. Then into it again. Then you check the rearview. Then you check the timestamps on your texts with Kate. A little more than six minutes ago. You crane your neck to check Chloe’s side mirror, just in case. Nothing… But there’s no way you imagined that. “Chloe… when I started texting I’m _sure_ , like, _sure sure_ that someone’s headlights reflected in my eyes from my side mirror. You saw me slouch down to text? _That’s_ why. That’s _entirely_ what made me wanna slouch down, to not get the light in my eyes.”  
  
Chloe frowns and decelerates. “Okay.” She shifts down and puts the truck into park, then turns it off. “Let’s just… sit here for a second, if someone’s following us, they must be trying to keep a distance. _If_ there is someone, they probably just came on whatever bend we were on a little faster than they meant to.”  
  
You nod and shiver as the October chill begins to penetrate the silent truck. The afternoon sun is still high in the sky, and the road and forest are brightly lit all around you. You and Chloe are both on alert, you turned around, having unbuckled yourself to look behind, and Chloe facing forward, eyes dancing from one mirror to the next, ready to start the engine if anyone shows up.  
  
Five tense minutes later… _nothing_. “Could it… have just been the sun?” Chloe asks.  
  
You shake your head quickly, “No, too high still, no matter what angle we’re driving at.” You sigh though, and after one last squint down the road behind you, turn and rebuckle yourself in. “I should’ve been paying more attention. This is _weird_ Chloe.”  
  
She chuckles, doing the… fancy manual transmission thingy to get the truck started. “No shit, eh? That kinda seems to be the world’s modus operandi around you.” The engine roars to life and she starts to drive.  
  
“I guess so,” you sigh, and continue your mirror-based vigil.  


 

≅≅≅

  
  
The short rest of the drive ends up uneventful. You carefully take note of all the cars in the street. A good number of fishermen seem to be home, whether for lunch or for the evening, you’re not sure. No light blue truck, but no black one either, which is… more disconcerting than not, since it had been just driving off when you left.  
  
That hair-raising discomfort followed you all the way home though, even if you’re… pretty sure. Mostly sure. That nothing else did. You hesitate getting out of the truck, even as Chloe’s already opening her house’s front door, but you scamper quickly to follow so you’re not left outside alone.  
  
Chloe turns around with a jump as you close the door behind you maybe a _little_ harder and faster than is strictly necessary. She raises her eyebrows. “So… I guess you’re still feeling stalked?”  
  
You nod, “It hasn’t gotten better. And after that headlight thing I’m… kinda worried, Chloe. I-” You cringe a bit internally. “Do you think we can like… set up defences?” Your voice gets smaller as you reach the end of the sentence in embarrassment.  
  
Chloe looks at you for a moment, before a wide grin splits her face. “Dude, like, fortify my house?! Fuck yeah!”  
  
Despite your initial embarrassment, you can’t help but roll your eyes at her display of enthusiasm. “Ya, basically. It’s gonna be interesting trying to do so and explain to Joyce and David though.”  
  
“Ugh.” Immediately Chloe’s face falls. “True. You have a plan at all?”  


 

≅≅≅

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Current Point: October 10th, around 1:12pm
> 
>  
> 
> What’s your plan for explaining why you’re in Arcadia Bay to Joyce and David?  
> [] Write in
> 
> What’s your plan for explaining why you’re surreptitiously (or maybe not so surreptitiously ) preparing the Price household for some kind of assault?  
> [] Write In
> 
> Finally, what’s your plan for fortifying the house as a whole?  
> [] Write In  
> [] Jame C's plan
> 
> Anyone is welcome to add to, modify, or create plans as always. Looking mostly for a paragraph at absolute most for the first 2 write-ins, and something in plan format for the last write-in.


	18. 2.10

As you outline your plan to Chloe, the skeptical look on her face grows more and more incredulous.  
  
“Max, you realize how much of this relies totally on David fucking _Madsen_ being _cool_?” She sounds personally affronted, but you just shrug.  
  
“He’s saved my life before, and please, Chloe, don’t misunderstand.” You grab her shoulders and make her look you in the eyes. “I _know_ he’s a complete shithead to you. I _know_ he makes completely unreasonable demands and bosses you around and is, in every conceivable way, the primordial form of an abusive asshole stepdad.” You let go of her and lean back against the couch. “But… Chloe, he’s-” before you continue something comes to mind. It’s already more than a stretch, but you _can’t_ defend him if this is the case.  
  
“Has he hit you before, Chloe?”  
  
Her eyes widen. “Wha- No?! Does he? Oh that fuckhead, I _wish_ he would, Joyce would _totally_ kick him out.”  
  
That answers that. You’re relieved, but also a little wary of the moral trap you’ve put yourself in.  
  
“He does if he thinks you’ve stolen one of his guns. Which you _did_ , but that _does not_ mean hitting you is okay _at all_. Obviously. I’ll always take your side against him Chloe, but if he hasn’t gone that far yet, I need to think there’s still time to convince him to… _not_ be such an utter asswipe.”  
  
She sighs. “Damn, I was thinking of how easy it’d be to just take one, too.”  
  
You nod, “It would be, but we don’t need him as an enemy right now.” You hesitate, but decide to press your luck. “Whatever he says tonight, unless it’s clear that like, _I’m_ getting pissed off at him, could you tone down the sass?”  
  
“Pfft, that’s a big ask Miss Caulfield, I just don’t know if it’s possible.”  
  
You grin, “Well I hope you find a way, or we might have to shoot our way out of the next family meeting.”  
  
She laughs and nods. “Sure, sure, whatever. He should be home around two.”  
  
You nod and glance at the living room clock. Another half hour then. “Let’s head into the garage and see what kind of cover we have to work with.”

 

≅≅≅

  
Your plan for defending the garage isn’t complex, it’s barely even a plan. You and Chloe scour the garage for anything to build a barricade out off, and eventually come up with a passable assortment of items. You have _no idea_ what he was gonna use them for, but there’s a pile of bags of concrete mix in one corner that make up the base of your barricade. Around them goes various pieces of wood, debris, some bags of rice, and a couple of large empty spools.  
  
“Not bad, Max, looks like we’re getting ready for a round of nazi zombies!”  
  
You laugh. “I _wish_ we had a pack-a-punch machine, or anything like that.”  
  
Chloe nods, “Being able to just wait for the red jelly to go away when we get fucked up would be great too.”  
  
“Pfft, you’re telling me.”  
  
_SLAM_. You jump and see Chloe do so too next to you. Thumping footsteps make their way to the living room, and a familiar, square head peers into the room with an everpresent grimace. “What the hell are you doing in my garage? And who’s this?”  
  
You look from Chloe, who is very _pointedly_ not saying anything, to David and his stern expression. _Time to go, Super-Max._ “David, let’s talk.”

 

≅≅≅

  
Fortunately, David, for all his paranoia, basically wears his heart on his sleeve. You’re able to tell plainly when you’ve said the wrong thing- or more often said something in the wrong _way_ \- almost immediately. This means that instead of a bunch of long rewinds as you gauge his mindset, the conversation is a bunch of shorter ones, which is exponentially less tiring. You'd been _hoping_ to be able to convince him without the whole... time travel aspect, but he just wasn't willing to believe that you weren't in the wrong somehow for being pursued by someone or someones for no reason. _Ugh, that means I'll have to tell Joyce too._  
  
Eventually, you’re all seated in the living room, David in the blue chair, facing you and Chloe on the couch. He sighs. “Time travel… people following you around… Jesus…”  
  
“I- I’m sorry David, I know this is a lot to take in,” it feels like you’re saying that a lot lately, “but I wouldn’t be coming to you if I- if _we_ didn’t need your help.” Chloe shoots you a look, but you elbow her lightly. _Now is not the time._  
  
David just looks at you for a moment. He says, “And you _know_ that someone’s coming for you?”  
  
You hesitate, seeing two ways you could go about this. _No. No, I’ve lied enough. We can’t make informed decisions without some honesty._ “I don’t _know_ , not exactly. But… everything that’s happened and everything I’m feeling is _screaming_ that someone is after me.”  
  
He seems to look into the middle distance, and nods. “A soldier’s instincts. It’s a different kind of war you’re fighting Max, but that just means your gut is trained for the battles that _you_ fight.”  
  
He sighs, and looks you in the eyes. “Alright Max, what can I do to help?”  
  
You look at Chloe, unable to suppress a grin. _That was easier than I thought._ She grins right back, and looks at David. “Guns.” She says as David’s face falls. “Show us how to use’em.”  
  
He looks helplessly between you and Chloe for a moment, begging you with his eyes to say that’s not what you want. “Hoh boy… Joyce is gonna kill me,” he mutters with a sigh. “Let’s go.”

 

≅≅≅

  
A few minutes later, you’re situated in the garage. David is preaching about gun safety, mostly to Chloe, you tuned him out almost immediately. You’ve used the guns yourself more than enough times. Chloe’s eyes are sullenly fixed on David as he talks, and you stride over to the cabinet.  
  
_Hmm, what am I feeling today?_ Shotguns were right out, in your estimation. They’re already unwieldy and in the cramped space of the Price household they’d be nigh unusable. The magnums? You know Chloe prefers them, but you could never get a handle on the recoil, and you shudder to think about how your arms would handle it in their atrophied state. That leaves his Smith and Wesson M&P’s, the most common handgun in America for a reason. Reliable, not massive stopping power, but more ( _way_ more, in your opinion) than enough stopping power than any civilian should need. You pull out the second one from the top, it needs cleaning, but that’s partly why you chose it.  
  
David’s explanation falters as the sound of metal being placed onto metal breaks his focus. He and Chloe both look over at you curiously. You only dimly notice though, you’re focused entirely on disassembling the handgun. In less than a minute, you have body of the gun, the guide rod and recoil spring, the barrel, and the now emptied slide laid out on top of the tool box before you.  
  
David whistles. “You know your stuff there Max.”  
  
You shrug modestly, “It’s not like it’s a very complicated teardown, not exactly a lot of moving parts.”  
  
“True,” he nods, then goes back to lecturing Chloe about trigger discipline.  
  
You fish his cleaning solution and pads out of the little drawers on the bottom of his gun rack, and get to work. It’s a mindless kind of activity, but a zen one. You had eventually learned to get by without guns, but it seems your muscle memory stayed sharp.  
  
A few minutes later, you hear the front door unlock, and Joyce stride down the entry hall. David and Chloe don’t seem to notice, too focused on discussing the actual mechanical workings of his revolvers, which Chloe seems to be pretty intrigued by. _Cute, she’s always been into engineering._  
  
You give Joyce a wave as she curiously peers into the back-room of the garage from the living room, cognizant of the gunpowder staining your hands. “What on Earth?”  
  
David and Chloe both start guiltily and turn to her. “Hey mom.”  
  
“Evening Joyce.”  
  
She peers past the three of you towards the garage proper, and takes in the makeshift barricade you’ve built there. She stares at it for a moment before turning to David.  
  
“Now I won’t say I ain’t happy to see you two getting along,” Chloe starts to protest but Joyce keeps talking, “but I would _appreciate_ it if you would tell me what _exactly_ is goin’ on.”

 

≅≅≅

  
“I-I don’t know about all this Max.” Joyce is staring at you, wide-eyed. This conversation… isn’t going quite as well as it did with David. You eventually have to rewind less and less, you don’t want to exhaust yourself or start a nosebleed before anything even happens.  
  
“Joyce, I _promise_ I’m not like, a criminal, I have _no idea_ why these guys are after me or how they even _know_ about me.” She nods, but hesitantly, you’re still not through to her.  
  
You don’t rewind, but you decide to try a different angle. “Look, I know-”  
  
She interrupts you. “Max. I…” She sighs. “I don’t know about all this. I won’t say that I don’t believe ya, or that I can’t, but…” You shrink a bit as she eyes you carefully. “I can tell you’re real scared, and I know my husband and my daughter, Chloe would do _anything_ for her friends, and David loves to be a knight in shinin’ armour.”  
  
Your mind is brought back to Warren for a moment. Your other “knight.”  
  
“If you don’t mind… I’d like to call the hospital tomorrow and see what they say about your parents.” You hesitate, but nod. If it comes down to it, you can outright demonstrate your powers or go full rewind mode to convince her not to. Problem for tomorrow. “Tonight… well, how about I make us all a quick supper, and you can get back to what you’re doin’.” She smiles a little sadly, “It really is good to see David and Chloe gettin’ along.”  
  
As much as you still aren’t exactly David’s biggest fan, you can’t help but agree. You nod solemnly. Joyce stands with a flourish, clearly trying to put your arcane explanations of time travel behind her. “Anywho! I’ll put somethin’ quick on, maybe pasta? It’ll be ready in thirty, let your other gun-nuts know.”  
  
You smile and nod, “Thanks Joyce.” She regards you warmly for a moment, then trundles into the kitchen.

 

≅≅≅

  
You glance at the kitchen clock again. 4:12. An early supper for the Price (Madsen? You’re so used to calling it Price) household. It’s good though, and you have a feeling this might be the most amicable supper they’ve had together in months.  
  
“How do you know so much about this shi-” Chloe starts.  
  
“Language!” Everyone but Joyce laughs as she looks sternly at Chloe.  
  
“Heh, sorry mom. About this stuff?”  
  
David grunts and spools some spaghetti around his fork. “It was just the dream of a dumb kid, but I wanted to be a gunsmith before I joined the military and found a greater purpose.”  
  
Chloe snorts and David looks momentarily incensed. They stare at each other for a quiet second and you see Joyce freeze out of the corner of your eye. But the tense silence fades as they both seem to deflate.  
  
“It’s… cool,” Chloe says, carefully, as if trying each word for size, “I like engineering and mechanical stuff like that…”  
  
David blinks at her, eyes wide. “I- uh. I’d been thinking of taking night classes for it, once the job at Blackwell steadied a bit.”  
  
Chloe chews slowly, and swallows. Then a single, brief nod. “You should, it’s cool.”  
  
The two of them hurriedly go back to eating, apparently unwilling to acknowledge what might be the first completely non-confrontational supper talk they’ve ever had. Next to you, Joyce starts humming in between forkfuls of spaghetti, practically beaming at her husband and daughter.  
  
But you’ve been distracted for too long too, you quickly dig into your pasta as conversation begins anew, Chloe and David both talking individually to Joyce, and pointedly ignoring each other.

 

≅≅≅

  
_Current Point: October 10th, 2013. 4:15 PM._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya everybody, this update is running... incredibly long. Depending how I decide to split it up, it could be divided into as many as three separate posts. I've been picking away at it in a pretty out of order way, so I suspect the second will be ready tonight, if not the third as well a bit later. I could just post them all together later tonight, but I think for readability and not overwhelming people with what'll probably be a 6k word update in total, I am gonna split it up. No in-between votes this time, already a lot to do with James' plan.  
> Feel free to ask as always if you have any questions!  
> Also I know this isn't how decimals work but I wanna keep with the vague decimal chapters names.


	19. 2.11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Fairly graphic violence.

Joyce is in the middle of describing the first time she and David danced together when she’s silenced by three heavy, ponderous knocks at the door. The four of you all look between each other.  
  
“Joyce,” David says in a low voice, “Go upstairs, stay quiet.” She nods and gives him a quick peck on the cheek, then hurries off. Another three loud, heavy knocks. “Girls, you wait around the corner, by the doorframe. If they’re hostile, wait for me to run past you, _then_ turn out and shoot, we don’t need any friendly fire. Understood?”  
  
You gulp and say, “Gotcha.” You see Chloe hesitate, then give a single nod from the corner of your eye.  
  
“Good, let’s see who’s here.” You and Chloe scamper to take your positions by the kitchen doorway closest to the front door.  
  
“Coming, coming!” David shouts as another three knocks pounding through the house make you jump.  
  
You can’t see anything besides Chloe in front of you, you’re holding her hand tightly.  
  
You hear David unlatch the door and open it. A pause. “Mark? Can I help you?”  
  
Oh.  
  
Oh no.  
  
“David? I didn’t know this was your house.” Jefferson’s voice. You squeeze Chloe’s hand.  
  
“Well, it is. What are you doing here? And with-” He pauses, and you hold your breath fearfully for a moment. “Hmph, those guys are ex-military.”  
  
Jefferson chuckles. “Not ‘ex,’ David. I do some work for the Department of Homeland Security. We’re looking for a young woman who lives at this house, blue hair? We have reason to believe she’s sheltering another girl her age who has information about an active terrorist threat on US soil.”  
  
You hear David exhale loudly. “Well now, that’s a pretty big deal, isn’t it? Homeland Security, eh? You got a badge on you?”  
  
Silence. Jefferson is _hesitating._ Anyone else, that’d be a sign David had the upper hand. But you know Jefferson. This is just him being backed into a corner.  
  
“We’re undercover, David. No identifying marks, plausible deniability if we’re kidnapped by a cell member.”  
  
David snorts, dismissive. “Right. Get the Hell off of my porch.”  
  
“David,” Jefferson sounds irritated now, “are you _really_ going to obstruct a terrorism investigation? Where’s your sense of duty to this country?”  
  
“Get _off_ of my property.” David’s voice is full military-mode now, tense and commanding. “The kids aren’t here, anyway.”  
  
Quiet for a moment, you don’t hear movement, they must just be staring each other down. Finally, Jefferson sighs. “So much for the patriot angle.”  
  
You hear a _smack_ followed by David grunting, and are about to leap out to see what happened when you’re stopped in your tracks by a loud _CRACK_ followed almost instantly by a wet _splat_ and a spray of blood getting painted across the floor. You stagger backwards with Chloe and put your backs to the kitchen counter as time seems to slow, not due to any sort of powers, but just the basic human chemical response to seeing something that horrifies you. Fear and adrenaline. You’d never heard a silenced gunshot in real life, you think. Silence is too strong of a word for it. It’s still a gunshot, just robbed of all that bassy violence that’s made it into the cultural signifier for death. Maybe that’s why it’s effective? Without the depth to the sound, most people assume it’s just that, a random sound. Silence in anonymity. Fitting, you guess.  
  
“Wait here, watch for nosy neighbours.” Jefferson orders.  
  
Despite _feeling_ as though everything is in slow motion, you realize that’s just your perception when the person you’d been dreading turns the corner. His face mirrors the surprise on yours for a moment, before his expression relaxes into a cool superiority at yours melting into abject terror.  
  
“Maxine, right?” He asks, like it’s a question. “What a small world! It turns out I have a friend who’d like _very much_ to speak with you.”  
  
He blinks and peers a bit closer at Chloe, who’s huddled next to you, holding her gun behind her back. “Oh shit, a small world is right. You’re one of Rachel’s friends, aren’t you?” He leans against the doorframe casually. “I wonder why he didn’t tell me. Maybe he doesn’t know? Ah well, anyway.” In a single, slick movement, he draws a small handgun of some kind with a stubby extension to it’s barrel and-  
  
_CRACK  
CRACK_  
  
Chloe doesn’t even have time to fully raise her own gun before two bullets are lodged in her chest and she’s sinking to the floor and you drop your gun with a clatter so you can try and break her fall and-  
  
“Wha-!” Joyce’s voice. From the stairs. “You- you shot-! You…”  
  
Jefferson turns to her, lightning fast, genuinely surprised, already leveling his gun.  
  
“MONSTE-”  
  
_CRACK_  
  
The rest of Joyce’s shout is drowned out by the report of Jefferson’s weapon. You squeeze your eyes shut as Joyce’s body falls the rest of the way down the stairs with a pair of heavy _thumps_. You still hear her ragged breathing, alongside Chloe’s. You turn back to your friend and open your eyes. Her gaze is glassy, she’s in shock from the pain. You stand and face Jefferson.  
  
Every movement you’re making feels empty. Like you’re doing them just for the sake of doing them, moving, expending energy, breathing, barely. Blood staining the ground of the Price household. Staining the walls. Trying to scrub it out mentally.  
  
Jefferson stands staring at Joyce’s body for a moment, then his head flickers to look at where you assume David’s is. Then he turns again in a flash, staring at Chloe’s. “SHIT!” He slams one latex-gloved hand against the doorframe, making a solid _smack_.  
  
He points at you suddenly, accusingly, eyes wild. “ _You_ did this, y’know? If you hadn’t talked to that _idiot_ security guard, _none of this_ -” He gesticulates, flinging his arms around himself, spinning on the spot, before grounding himself staring at you, “Would have happened!”  
  
He produces a needle from somewhere in his blazer. Your eyes fix on it, your mind numbly following along. “Come on, before you make any _more_ trouble for Mr. Prescott.”  
  
_Prescott…_ He approaches you fast, but your mind catches up with what your eyes are seeing just before he reaches you and _suddenly you feel everything at once._ He hesitates and actually steps back as you scream in impotent rage and fear and grief and reach towards him with one burnt, scarred hand, before you settle instead for grabbing the threads that all feel like piano wire under your vice like grip and you close your eyes and you _twist_.  
  
You _twist_ and you _just keep twisting_ and _pulling_ with _all of your strength_ until your lungs cry out for oxygen from holding your scream so long and your throat _burns_ with exertion and then you hold it all just a _bit_ longer anyway-

 

≅≅≅

  
And then you collapse, pulled down by the weight of everything you just witnessed. It didn’t happen. You made it not. Wait- shit. When did you rewind to? You cough weakly and look up from the kitchen floor to see-  
  
“Jayzus almighty!” your ears are still ringing but Joyce’s startled exclamation manages to fill you with hope anyway. _I can still fix this… obviously. I guess. Just… holy shit._ You take a few deep breaths and wipe your face on your sleeve. It comes away bloody, not yours though.  
  
You force yourself to look up. “H-hey Joyce.”  
  
She’s looking at you with wide, concerned eyes. “How the Hell didya get down there Max?”  
  
“Uh. Time travel.”  
  
She looks up into the middle distance and puts her hands on her hips. A long exhale. “I guess so, huh?” She glances back down at you. “What on- How did you get so bloody? C’mere dear let’s clean you up.”  
  
From the garage, you hear “Max? MAX!?” Chloe. Hah. You glance at the kitchen clock. _Almost twenty minutes before supper… Wow. Did I rewind that far? How?_ You don’t feel any worse for wear. _I hope it’s not just the adrenaline._  
  
“In here Chlo!” Joyce yells, and a second later Chloe and David come bounding out of the garage.  
  
“Holy Hell Max.” David says, putting his hand to his forehead, “What the Hell happened? One minute you’re there showing off your gun know-how, next you fuc- sorry Joyce- friggin’ disappear.”  
  
Chloe’s next to you almost instantly as David talks, rubbing your back. Joyce is dabbing at your face with a warm, wet cloth, wiping Chloe’s blood off of you. _I wonder if that blood is still in Chloe, or if it teleported like I did? That’s… worrying._  
  
A few minutes later, and painfully aware of those few minutes, you’re bundled with a blanket wrapped around you at the kitchen table, explaining as briefly as possible what had happened.  
  
“Jesus…” David mutters. “All of us, just like that?”  
  
Chloe is staring at the table, pale. _See what I mean about the realities of time travel, Chlo?_  
  
Joyce’s eyes are flickering around from window to window, she’s nervous.  
  
“This Jefferson fucker, I’ve seen him a few times at the school, he just up and _shot_ me? Just like _that?_ ” David asks. _So he’s not gonna come clean about investigating him for the Dark Room. I wonder if he even is investigating him here?_  
  
You nod. “Jefferson is like a cornered coyote,” you start, “he can more than hold his own in a fight, but he only does it when he thinks it’s a last resort, when he thinks he’s between a rock and a hard place.” You look at David, and he hesitantly looks up to meet eyes. “You count as a rock to him David, and whoever he’s working for? Apparently enough of a hard place to justify _murder_.”  
  
Joyce looks like she’s about to cry from fear, and Chloe looks like she’s trying to shake herself out of whatever stupor seeing you coated in her blood put her into. _I hate seeing them like this._ You sigh. “I’m… I’m sorry guys. I didn’t know they’d be so… like _that_.” You shake your head. “I didn’t even _know_ for sure that I was being followed until just now…”  
  
A fist slams on the table making you jump and whip your head to look at the doorframe but- it’s just Chloe. “It is _not_ your fault Max.” She has steel in her voice, you turn to look at her and see deep blue eyes practically burning under similarly blue hair. “Those _assholes_ started this, I dunno why, but _they_ fired the first shot, and _they_ came after us. Fuck this, Prescott isn’t going to get you on my watch.”  
  
_Chloe…_ You smile at her gratefully. “Thanks Chloe, really.” You gather your thoughts, and launch into them, “So, Mark Jefferson and at least one other dude- actually, you said ‘those’ guys David, probably two, maybe 3 others, all ex-military except for Jefferson- are coming here, with silenced guns, _apparently_ ready to kill to get to me, because they’re dicks, I guess.” Everyone nods. “My first idea is to jump back to the morning, or even afternoon, and leave town with Chloe, and maybe with some of your guns, David.” Joyce and Chloe nod, but David shakes his head.  
  
“It sounded like you said they were following you. They’ll be coming after you either way, at least here they can’t just barge in and surprise you, we know that they knock first. Besides, this is home turf. It’s always better to fight a battle on familiar ground than unknown terrain.” He shifts into what you’ve come to think of as his ‘military’ tone of voice in the last sentence.  
  
You frown, he makes some points but… you’re not sure if you’re comfortable endangering Joyce like that. “Do you think we can take them, David?” You ask. You don’t love relying on him for _anything_ , but… well, he _has_ taken down Jefferson before, albeit under radically different circumstances.  
  
He nods, rubbing the stubble on his blocky jaw with one hand. “Now that they’ve lost the element of surprise, definitely. The real goal of the operation is gonna be sending a message, and _not_ giving them the opportunity to call the police on us.”  
  
“Right, so we kneecap’em!” Chloe says loudly, she looks excited, almost. You grin at her enthusiasm.  
  
“Chloe.” David says, that annoyingly familiar stern edge creeping into his voice. “How _easy_ do you think it is to shoot a moving target, who doesn’t want to get shot, in the knee?”  
  
Chloe starts with a (justifiably) petulant response, but you interrupt, “Mr. Madsen, I’ve done shooting with Chloe… _before_. As long as I’m guiding her and _you_ can hold your own, she can hit _anything_.” Maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but you want to head this argument off.  
  
The ex-soldier bristles for a second, and you worry momentarily that you’re about to have a _confrontation_. But he swallows and nods. “I can hold my own just fine.” You sigh a bit then. _I had to go back, but it really sucks that I erased whatever progress the two of them talking over dinner represented._  
  
You come back to yourself and nod back. “Good, go start setting up in the garage. Joyce, I know it’ll be _really_ worrying, but no matter what you hear, _don’t_ come downstairs. I promise that I’ll keep them safe, but it’ll be that much more difficult if I’m trying to keep an eye on you too.”  
  
Joyce smiles wearily at you. “Max, I don’t know what awful things you’ve gone through to getcha like this, but you have grown into a _fine_ young woman.” She stands up and leans over to pull you into a warm hug. You hug her back, tightly. “Take care of them, kapish?”  
  
You nod into her shoulder. “Promise.”  
  
She lets go of the hug and turns to her daughter. “You give’em the what for, got it dear?”  
  
“Pfft, they won’t know what hit’em.” Chloe manages to spout off with a cocky grin, but you can tell from the way she blinks and flushes that she’s startled by the sudden confidence and… positivity about violence… from her mom.  
  
“Be safe y’all.” Joyce says, and makes her way upstairs. _I hope she does stay put this time…_  
  
Only the quiet omnipresent hum of a suburban home’s appliances reigns in the kitchen after she leaves. You sit there, thinking, Chloe watching you think.  
  
You glance up, her lips are pursed and she looks away from your gaze. Something on her mind. “What’s up?” You ask.  
  
“This is… the second run through now… right?” She seems hesitant to ask.  
  
You nod, “We’ll get it right in one Chloe, now that we know they’re coming.”  
  
She relaxes at that. “Was Jefferson involved with the Prescott fuckos in, uh, I guess the time you remember?”  
  
You purse your lips. “It’s… weird. He _was_ but not nearly as overtly. The Prescotts were more like his… sponsors. Under the table.” You briefly consider coming clean to her about the Dark Room, but… maybe right now isn’t the best time.  
  
“Max… I think there’s something bigger, much, much bigger going on here,” Chloe says with a frown.  
  
You nod. “I think if we get out of this okay, and- God. _If_ the storm doesn’t come tomorrow- we might need to… scale up a bit.”  
  
“Hell yeah dude,” Chloe grins, “You’ve got _time powers_ , think about what we could do with a _single_ ATM? We could get our own place pretty easily I bet, if we really wanted.”  
  
You laugh and flutter your eyelashes at Chloe. “Oh? Asking me to move in already? How forward of you, Miss Price.”  
  
She snorts. “Says the chick who broke into my room and asked to sleep with me.”  
  
“Pfft, you _wish_ that’s what I was asking.” _Aaand oh yikes this is getting uncomfortably close to the truth._ You blush suddenly and look away, trying to think of a topic change. You’re slightly gratified to see that Chloe doesn’t answer, aside from a similar reaction to yours.  
  
“A-Anyway,” she says, “What’s the deal with the storm, anyway? Do you think it’ll come?”  
  
You sigh and pick at your nails, glad for the topic change. “I… really don’t know, Chloe. The anomalies all happened- well, I think they did, I didn’t _see_ any dead animals- and I associate them happening pretty strongly with the storm, but…” You look up, out the Price house’s back door, to the calm late afternoon sky. “Last time, _every_ last time, I had dreams, and- also visions of the storm the whole week long. This time? Nothing. I haven’t had a single memorable dream, let alone any visions of it.” That’s not entirely true. In your sleep, your dreams are almost always tormented by memories of the storm, different storms. But there’s something _else_ to visions and prophetic dreams, a kind of overwhelming _realness_ , something about them is incredibly _grounded_ , to the point that reality almost feels less so when you wake up. And yes, you haven’t had _any_ of those types of dreams since you woke up in the hospital. _Which reminds me…_  
  
You lay out your encounter with the glowing lady in the hospital to Chloe, hoping for some insight. As you finish and describe her saying ‘wish me luck, you’ll need it,’ Chloe gapes at you.  
  
“Max.”  
  
You blink at her. “Hm?”  
  
“You had an encounter with your _future self_ and you didn’t tell me?”  
  
You blink at her again, this time cocking your head in confusion. “Future… self?”  
  
Her eyes go wide and she buries her face in her hands. “Oh Max. Max, Max, _Max_. That is such a textbook future self encounter! You even kept saying how familiar she was, but that you _couldn’t quuuite_ place her? Well _duh_ , it’s you dude!”  
  
_Hm, this feels like an existential crisis ready to go._  
  
“But… I’m me.” You say weakly.  
  
“I- I mean, yes Max, you _are_. But like, _time powers_ dude, is it really all _that_ surprising there’s at least one other ‘you’ out there?”  
  
You sigh and lean back. “I guess not…”  
  
Chloe’s grinning now, “And you said she yelled to someone you couldn’t see, and called them ‘Punk’? Fuckin’ guess who I bet that is!”  
  
You giggle. “Huh, I guess I manage to keep you alive… however long that is away.”  
  
She smirks, “You better, hippie, I’ve got a feeling I’ll save your life too a few times before we get there.”  
  
You decide to stop thinking about it too hard until you can talk more with Chloe. Something about seeing your future self who _is_ that much older is reassuring… but just the same… _I wonder how many of… me… never get the chance to do that._  
  
No. You have more important things to think about right now. Like getting out of here alive.  
  
“Right,” you say, “let’s get ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post two of three ladies and gents, bringing this update to a nice 5.3~k words now. I wrote that whole Jefferson scene first, then the rest of this update kind of grew around it to either side. He’s a dick, but he has a way of stealing the show when he shows up. Final post of this update could be either tonight or early tomorrow morning, depends how well writing the action goes.


	20. 2.12

**CW: Gross depictions of gun violence, semi-detailed depiction of vomiting in a bathroom.**  
  
‘Getting Ready’ less takes the form of a tacticool action suiting up sequence, and more involves everyone hunkering down in the garage and debating whether to leave the garage door open or not.  
  
“If we leave it open, we’re just giving them a clear fucking shot right at us! From as far away as they want!” Chloe exclaims loudly, making you wince from your proximity.  
  
You nod. “True, but if we hide they might head into the garage first to, like, flank David or something, then we’ll have the drop on them.”  
  
David grunts. “Either way, I don’t want my car getting dinged up by any stray bullets.”  
  
You and Chloe roll your eyes at each other, but David’s already up and opening the garage door. The two of you quickly duck below your makeshift cover as he starts the car, and rolls it outside. Every second seems tense after he kills the engine some distance away. You hear him reenter the garage, then enter the _house_ through the side entry inside the main garage. A second later, he emerges quietly from the living room door. _Smart guy_.  
  
“Now,” he says, “we wait.”  


≅≅≅

  
  
You pass the time in quiet conversation. Chloe doesn’t participate much, only chiming in here and there, focusing instead on her weapon, carefully examining the mechanics of the revolving chamber and safety mechanism.  
  
“Bird shot,” says David, answering your question, “Wouldn’t do anything _lethal_ against a deer, or a human for that matter, but it’ll make them wish they hadn’t gotten out of bed that morning.” _Click-CLACK._ He chambers a shell.  
  
You nod. “That explains it, I’ve tried using your shotguns before, but they never had quite the punch I needed at the time. You really should keep your shells in the boxes they came in.”  
  
The ex-soldier grunts. “Right, I’ll be sure to leave them in the box next time, so the next time travelling delinquent that ransacks my house doesn’t get confused.”  
  
You- Hold on, was that a _joke?_ Did David Madsen just make a _joking quip_ at you? You giggle in spite of yourself, what a surreal day, you even see Chloe hiding a smile out of the corner of your eye.  
  
But you all freeze as an engine rumbles it’s approach outside, and stops at the foot of the driveway. You peek out between two loosely piled bags of cement mix. A familiar black van. _So it was you…_  
  
Four men step out of it, one from each door. From the passenger seat, Jefferson, the other three are burly men, one heavyset, one lithe, and one rippling with muscle. The four of them stand together for a moment, Jefferson with a relaxed, easygoing posture while the three ex-military men are standing almost stock straight, the heavyset and buff ones listening closely to Jefferson, while the lithe one scans the house, looking at the windows, the door, and finally, the open garage.  
  
Lithe soldier taps Jefferson on the shoulder and points towards the garage, where you’re hiding. He stares for a moment, then nods and gestures for the others to follow. Your heart jumps into your throat as he approaches, and you swallow thickly, trying to push down the lump of fear back down into your stomach.  
  
Jefferson taps the muscular one. “Watch the door.” You can hear him from here. He and the other two soldiers approach slowly.  
  
“Helloooo~” He says, drawing the word out. “Anyone here?”  
  
The three of you stay frozen.  
  
“Hmph.” He shrugs. “Must be inside. What do you guys think, would it be more effective if the three of us knocked from _inside_ the house, so they get freaked out coming downstairs? Or should we just do the door with all of you flanking me?”  
  
The heavyset one shrugs. “Dunno.”  
  
“Yeh, either or’d be good, mate.” The lithe one offers.  
  
He sighs. “So much for artistic minded henchmen. Let’s just head inside.” You turn slightly at that and lock eyes with Chloe, then glance up at David and nod.  
  
_Wait_. One second. Two. You pop over the cover. _Too late, Jefferson already inside._ You shrink back down and pull the threads back, watching through the hole between cement bags. As the home invaders slowly back into the position you want them in, you raise your hand up into a fist. You let go of the rewind abruptly, and David starts as you flicker from a crouched position into the ‘fire’ position. But then years of ingrained training take over, and he rotates out of cover, carefully finds his target- _the leftmost option, we decided_ \- and starts to squeeze the trigger.  
  
All of your focus is on Chloe though, who started to pop up the moment she saw you flickering. You carefully watch her cock her pistol, aim- _at the rightmost target, Jefferson_ \- and fire.  
  
David’s birdshot flies true, _mulching_ the lithe man’s leg with a sudden blast of acrid smoke and the _squelch_ of gore. The man screams, but you’ve tuned it out, Chloe’s shot flies _past_ Jefferson into the house’s entryway, in the space of a pair of moments you hear it _ping_ off of something- _the front door?_ \- then _PING_ off of something else- _I don’t even know, the radiator?-_ before it flies back _towards_ the garage and _embeds itself suddenly in Jefferson’s skull_. Sending a splatter of skull shards and blood and brain matter into the face of the heavyset man behind him, who joins his fellow ex-soldier in screaming.  
  
You nearly vomit at the sight and force yourself to look away- _fucking Chloe, always with the ricochets-_ then you search for and _pull_ on the threads. You can’t deny that it was satisfying, in a way, but it’s not the plan. That kind of attention won’t stand.  
  
You pull back several seconds, careful not to startle David and interrupt his true shot as you do so. Without interference from you his should go exactly the same as the first time, just like always. You mutter to Chloe, “ _Little to the left_ ,” as she sets her aim. Then you sit up a little higher so your arms cross above hers, without blocking her vision. You carefully take aim, pull back time a bit so your shot is simultaneous with the others, but also so that you don’t erase the advice you gave to Chloe, and take your shot at the heavyset man’s leg.  
  
You know the moment you first that your first shot isn’t true, so you move the gun slightly, rewind to _just_ after you fired, then line up another shot from your new position and _squeeze_ as you let go. The gun kicks again in your hand. _Another miss_.  
  
You’d realized quite early on that you were a terrible shot. But you’d also realized that the main disadvantage to being a terrible shot was that it gave your target time to react. Fortunately, that’s not an issue for you. There were some considerations to be taken, sure, if you rewound a bullet into the gun barrel and it wasn’t _exactly_ in the position it had been at the time of firing, odds are it’d be scooping out a chunk of gun mechanism, which gets all sorts of messy. Eventually, your modus operandi with firearms came naturally. Quantity over quality. Doesn’t matter how accurate you are if you can empty an entire magazine of individually aimed shots _simultaneously_.  
  
So, that’s what you do. Carefully adjusting your position with each shot, rewinding slightly, and firing again, until the entire magazine is floating in staggered formation in the air. You marvel at the glittering display of violence for a moment, able to literally _see_ the warping bullet trail behind each one. Then, you shrug and let go of the rewind.  
  
_BANG-  
CRACKCRACKCRACKCRACK  
“AAAAAAAAAGH!!”  
Squelch_  
  
The instant display of force downs all three men. You watch the lithe man’s leg get mulched by the birdshot, _again_ , then see the effects of your hail of bullets. All but three miss, and only two of those are actually on target. One buries itself into the heavyset soldier’s calf, and as his leg starts to buckle, it puts the other bullet right on track to push into the crook of his knee. From his pained shout and the intense _snap_ you’re pretty sure that one shattered a bone… or several. Your final true shot penetrates into Jefferson’s left leg with significantly less force than Chloe’s .357 slug _slams_ into his right leg with, inducing a kind of twisting motion as he screams and falls to the ground.  
  
You vault over the barricade and sprint forward and hear the front door get heavily _kicked_ open. The musclebound ex-soldier sprints past the first garage door opening- _he must know the floorplan-_ towards the living room.  
  
You turn and shout, “David! Living room!”  
  
Eyes wide, he turns and starts to level his shotgun at the doorway, but the buff soldier is already there. He _launches_ himself forward at David with no regard for the weapon pointed at him-  
  
And rightfully so, David hasn’t had time to pump the next shot into the chamber. The muscled soldier easily rips it from David’s grip and tosses it behind him, away from Chloe, before swinging in with a _brutal_ right hook that connects with David’s eye.  
  
You rewind five seconds, lean down, and pull the gun and needle from Jefferson’s jacket, toss them away. Rewind ten seconds. Do the same to the heavyset man, groaning in pain and complaining about his shattered leg- _Grow up, murderer-_ , then another ten seconds, and do the same to the lithe man, trying not to look at the utter _mess_ that is his birdshot filled leg. Them taken care of, and David having taken three (well, technically just one) separate punches to the skull behind you, you let go of all but one thread and saunter over behind the muscley invader.  
  
You nod as you look him up and down. Yep. He could’ve really caused you guys a problem, a _real_ bother. You casually lean over and put your hand on the shotgun, letting go of the budget timestop for _just a second_ , just long enough for you to yank it in with you, before you reestablish it. Truly, a big man like this? Could’ve taken David out of commission and put a _real hurt_ on you and Chloe. You pump the shotgun back with a _click,_ watching in fascination as the ejected cartridge shoots out of the side, before the timestop establishes it’s dominance and freezes it mid-air. You follow that up with the customary pump forward, and it _CLACKS_ as a new shell slides into the chamber.  
  
But, unfortunately for him, _you’re_ a time traveller.  
  
You take aim at the back of the man’s leg, but frown and reconsider your angle. You don’t _think_ the spread will be that bad this close, but you don’t want to accidentally clip David. Speaking of which, you consider briefly whether you should rewind the punch. You look at his quickly purpling eye. On the one hand, tactically, it doesn’t make any sense to leave him injured. But on the other… You sigh. You know he’ll like having some kind of ‘battle scar,’ even if he complains about it.You shrug and stride over to the side of Mr. Muscles, and take aim at his leg.  
  
“Sorry bud,” you say, and let go of the timestop and _SQUEEZE._  
  
But just as quickly reestablish it, rewind less than a second, and make your way to the other side. Take aim. Let go, _SQUEEZE_ , absorb the heavy kick in your shoulder. Reestablish.  
  
It’s a pattern you were at least sort of used to.  
  
Then you step back, _well_ away from the crossfire, and let go for good to survey your handiwork.  
  
A hundred little _crackcrackcrackcrackcracks_ fill the room as dozens and dozens of birdshot pellets play absolute havoc with the man’s hardened muscles. Unfortunately, these things are _designed_ for fucking with organic material, and his lower legs are _shredded_ as he screams in sudden agony. He lets go of David and collapses forward, calves completely unable to bear his weight any longer. You casually step forward and pull yet another silenced pistol from his pants, tossing it on the ground behind him.  
  
Chloe and David are breathing heavily, but only David is any worse for wear.  
  
They’re both staring at the groaning men piled throughout the garage, wide-eyed. From their perspective, how long was that? Less than a minute? Less than thirty seconds, even?  
  
Advantages of having a time traveller on your side.  
  
You stand in the middle of the garage and survey the destruction. Mr. Lithe seems to have fainted from shock, blood is pooling under the mess of meat and bone that used to be his left leg. Mr. Heavyset is groaning in pain, squeezing himself in a tight hug, trying to distract from the _incredible_ pain of the shard of broken bone jutting out from under his kneecap. Mr. Muscles in the back is in much the same situation as Mr. Lithe, but conscious. And both his legs are ruined. He’s sobbing from the pain.  
  
You survey them all, and you feel a little satisfied.  
  
And then.  
  
…  
  
You feel a little revolted by yourself.  
  
You suppress the feeling for the moment, and follow the twin trails of blood, one smaller, one heavy, that trace Jefferson’s path. You catch up with him outside, just past the open garage, you hook one foot under his chest and with a _heave_ flip him over.  
  
He groans in pain, looking up at your with tangible fear in his eyes through his cracked glasses. You crouch down and stare through them into his cool grey eyes, hatred burning hotter than a jet engine inside of you. “Next time you try to touch me or my friends, I _will_ fucking kill you.”  
  
Jefferson’s expression changes, and suddenly he’s looking at you with something approaching awe, even reverence through the pain. “Maxine,” he begins, “have you ever considered becoming a model?”  
  
You stand, feeling bile rise to your throat, and administer a single, hard kick to his stomach. You stagger inside, leaving his wheezing, gasping form behind you.  


≅≅≅

  
  
You manage to make it to the bathroom before you vomit. Half-digested spaghetti that was never made pouring into the toilet.  
  
You retch in the bathroom for a while longer, until only stomach acid comes up to burn your throat. Chloe comes to check on you partway through, but you wave her off. You need to be alone with your thoughts right now.  
  
_What the hell am I going to do?_ You’re just a teenager. And you just crippled three men- _and a monster-_ probably for the rest of their lives. You tear off a piece of toilet paper from the roll and wipe your mouth, then another to wipe the tears and snot. Then you turn to stare at yourself in the mirror. _You_ look back, but… you don’t feel right in your own body. You haven’t, truthfully, since you woke up in the hospital. You were so used to waking up in the Blackwell washroom, specific steps, a plan to be followed. Now look at you. Your cheeks look hollow, you’re unbelievably pale, moreso even than Chloe, eyes puffy and red, hunched over, breathing scratchily, your hair in your usual bob, sure, courtesy of Chloe, small flecks of puke left near the front ends. You pull off more toilet paper and try to wipe them out.  
  
_These people- they have fucking guns. And ex-soldiers. And serial killers. Who the fuck am I?_ You’re _just_ a teenager. You shouldn’t have to deal with this shit. What’s your endgame, anyway? How the fuck do you protect Chloe, let _alone_ Joyce and David and whoever else you drag into this from people like _that_? You can’t be everywhere at once, you can’t _protect_ everyone at once. You sigh, and try to ignore the unbearable feeling of hopelessness pressing down on you.  
  
You stagger over to the sink under the medicine cabinet and look down into it, turn on the tap, and splash your face. The cool water feels good, even if your skin is already clammy and sweaty. Ugh. You need a shower. Something in you twitches. A spike of… of fear? Adrenaline now. _Something’s happening._ You wipe your sleeve over your face and turn around, body tense. Nothing… You creep forward, eyes scanning each dark patch of shadow.  
  
Nothing yet. Distantly you hear sirens, police must be on their way. Oh joy. _Hooray for ‘stand your ground’ laws._ Your stomach still feels tight though, almost more than ever. _Why? We took down Jefferson._ You walk into the hall, stepping carefully, as if on a tightrope. Nothing, all upstairs doors closed. At random, you decide to check on Chloe’s room, maybe you’ll get a new sweater out of it. Careful steps, you can’t seem to relax. Open the door…  
  
Nothing. As expected, you guess. The lights are off, but a bit of dim evening light filters in, even as the setting sun is blocked by the houses to the west of this one. You step inside, shivering a bit at the cool breeze from the open window over her desk-  
  
Hold on. Open window?  
  
You turn, and as you do something you can scarcely see as anything but a _streak_ of black _dives in_ through the window and somersaults to a stop in front of you, quickly and efficiently killing their momentum. Your hand flashes to your back like it was spring loaded but- _I left my gun in the bathroom._ The figure- and you see now that it _is_ a figure- stands, rising slowly to it’s feet.  
  
It’s a person. _What else?_ A couple inches taller than you. Fairly broad shoulders. Ski-mask. Leather jacket. Black pants, not jeans, something stretchier, better for moving. You step back into a half crouched stance, weight shifted neither entirely backwards nor forwards, reflecting the struggle going on in your head of whether to stand your ground or flee. Something about this feels like a culmination, maybe of that uneasiness, that fear that’s been hounding you through the day?  
  
Ultimately, the figure decides for you as they, with a flick of their wrists, procure an unsheathed combat knife in each hand. _Okay. Yeah. No. Bullshit. Not a chance._ You transfer your weight to your back leg, pivot, and _launch_ yourself into the hall, already reaching for those familiar threads and _twisting_. Moving while in rewind is different from moving normally. There’s a reason you prefer to move from one spot to another in ‘real-time’, and _then_ rewind to do your ‘teleporting.’ Moving in a rewind feels… slippery. Almost like everything loses a bit of it’s ability to generate friction, a bit of it’s _realness_. You don’t _slide_ around like you’re on ice or anything, but your ability to get traction from the ground seems drastically lower, less distance for the same amount of energy burned.  
  
That said, you feel like you don’t have much of a choice in this instance. You drop the rewind for a second once you get to the hall, and look left to right. _Gun first_. You initiate the rewind without even looking back behind you, and push it back to before you even _entered_ Chloe’s room, let alone saw the intruder dive inside of it. _There, that should buy me some time_. You swipe your gun off of the makeup counter and turn to the door-  
  
Just in time to see the shadowy figure finish an overhand throw of one of his combat knives. _Wha-_ You let out a startled yelp and flinch away, instinctively grabbing for the threads. The knife is thrown hard and fast though, and cuts a shallow score into your cheek as it flies by before you can _twist_. You shudder as you catch it with the rewind and send it back- _directly through the cut on your face again_. You scream and try to pull away, but hold onto the rewind, you must have moved your head slightly as your rewind grabbed it, slightly more _towards_ the projectile’s path. Your fear that the figure could _bypass_ your rewind somehow proves unfounded as the knife slowly returns to their hand and they start to reverse-throw it obediently. Your cheek is bleeding, not incredibly heavily, but it’s bad. No time for that now. You let go of the rewind right when you think they’ve fully committed to the throw-  
  
And lightning fast, in opposition to everything you know about how your power works and effects causality, the figure pivots around, shifting their weight expertly and letting out a loud, guttural growl, and underhand throws a knife from their _other_ hand at you, without even letting go of the first knife that you’d seen them throw.  
  
You’re so taken by surprise that you don’t even try to catch it in a rewind as it cuts your twisting form along the ribcage. The jolt of pain sends another shock of adrenaline through you, and faster than you could in any other situation, you unsnag all but one of the threads, pray, and _twist_.  
  
And _just in time_ your budget timestop springs into effect. You look up from the new wound in your side- _shit, Rachel’s clothes…-_ and find yourself looking down the business end of a knife that would’ve gone right between your eyes.  
  
_Okay. Okay. Okay._ You don’t have time to panic about this near brush with death now. You’re already feeling the strain on your mind from sustaining a rewind. _Shit, I’m getting tired._ You extricate yourself from the precarious position at knifepoint, and stagger towards the door, holding your wounded side. _Damnit_. It’s times like this you _desperately_ wish you could move people while rewinding or in a budget time stop. The fuckhead is blocking the doorway, you _could_ let go and try to push them aside, but you didn’t see where exactly they were hiding those first knives, and you’re _not_ willing to see if they have anymore shoved up their sleeves.  
  
Instead, you force yourself not to hesitate and sort of clamber-hoist yourself over them, people and objects in budget time stop are _infinitely_ sturdy, luckily. You hoist yourself over and sort of roll off of their back. You brush your wounded chest on their leather jacket and groan in pain as you fall to your knees. _No time. No time._ You force yourself to your feet and hobble to the stairs, practically falling down them as your mind starts to buckle under the combined weight of the sustained budget time stop and the fogginess from blood loss.  
  
You stagger downstairs as the rewind abruptly rips itself away from your hand and your head and croak as loudly as you can, “ _Help!”_ Before you stagger and collapse against the radiator next to the reading room door. David is bounding towards you from the living room in a flash, but the intruder is faster, seeming to _leap_ down the stairs, they land heavily on the ground in front of you with a throaty grunt.  
  
You scream and _wrench_ another rewind out even as the threads seem to be _fighting_ to get loose from your grip. You unleash the others and pull on just one of them, putting all of your focus to keeping that single thread pulled taut. Then, you crawl. Over what feels like hours, but is probably closer to seconds, you crawl down the hallway towards the living room, all your focus honed in on keeping that one thread pulled tight, a lifeline towards what you hope is safety.  
  
Your focus falters halfway down the hallway, you accidentally push the budget timestop into a full rewind, and with the additional strain for a moment the rewind fades, you retake it just as quickly, but your head shoots up at the suddenly cut-off sound of splintering wood. You appear to have rewound your assailant to partway down their plunge down the stairway, and… you suppose because of your new position, they appear to have rebounded themselves off of the wall, with both leather-clad arms crossed in front of them to protect their head, knives held pointy end towards _you_ in each hand. _How are they reacting so quickly?_ No, no time for idle musings.  
  
You painfully crawl and _crawl_ your way to the living room, then turn, and start crawling back behind the couch, past the rickety wooden shelf with the dead flowers that William used to take care of and then-  
  
You stop. You can’t go any further. You turn and slouch your back against the china cabinet next to the garage back room entrance. You lay your pistol across your lap, and then _focus._ You slowly, ever so slowly, as if not to alert them, gather up all the threads you can find into a tight clutch in the palm of your hand, then with the last reserves of your mental energy, you _pull_ them as _hard_ as you can.  
  
They don’t go very far. And a second after you let go you hear the throaty grunt that pronounces the intruder’s landing.  
  
“ _Help!”_ You croak again, weaker, but you’re closer to David this time, and almost instantly he’s out of the garage, gaping at your blood soaked, crumpled form. You hear what must be Chloe close behind him.  
  
“What the he-”  
  
“ _There.”_ You cut him off, and point towards the main hallway, already readying your own gun as best you can. He immediately bounds off before you can warn him not to. He turns and looks down the hallway, pulling his gun level just as Chloe runs up to the doorway beside where you are.  
  
And then you both watch the shadowy figure _launch_ , _feet first_ , into David. As the dropkick makes contact, there’s a flash, like a studio bulb, but somehow _sharper_ , tinged with _blue_ , and David goes _flying_ backwards. He’s not a small man, and this masked intruder, just barely taller than you, sends him _hard_ into the wall opposite the hallway, almost completely horizontally until he hits it and slides to the ground with a pained yell.  
  
This is absurd. You band together with Chloe’s family, take down Jefferson and his goons, at least _start_ to mend whatever rifts exist between David and Chloe, and then get taken down by some kind of fucking _ninja?_ You want to laugh. You _really_ want to. You would if it wasn’t so painfully, incredibly sad. Next to you, Chloe’s raising her gun at the figure, you turn away. You’re all too sure what will be burying itself in her in a moment.  
  
Turning away, you notice something strange. William’s dead flowers… they’re growing? Not just growing, but _glowing_. Your head is foggy but you remember seeing this, earlier in the week. The world takes on a kind of hazy, ethereal quality, though you suppose that might just be the bloodloss.  
  
Through the blur of colours you see the flowers bloom, and grow, and _keep growing,_ thicker and heavier than any household flower has any right to be. Let alone one that’s been _dead_ for months.. The masked intruder hesitates, eyes fixed on them, then they stop, and for a moment, everything is blissfully still.  
  
Then with a strange _crrreeeak_ violence erupts. A stalk _shoots_ out of one of the flowers like a whip, growing at incredible speed, and lashing at the intruder’s near hand, making them drop one knife. Then, before the figure can react, it wraps around their arm, twice over. Another stalk is growing and already shooting towards the masked intruder but they’ve come to their senses, and without hesitating, whip their free arm overhead and plunge the knife into the stalk holding them with-  
  
Another bright, sharp, strobing blue flash. You blink blearily, trying to process the overload of visual stimuli, the fight comes like a slideshow. The stalk that was holding them withers and dies, they shake their arm free but-  
  
They’re out of position. The other stalk has wrapped around their other arm without taking the knife. They try to switch hands but this one-  
  
The intruder is screaming, large, jagged thorns sprouted all at once along the length of the stalk wrapping itself around their arm. They drop the knife, surprised by the sudden pain. Another _flash_ , this time accompanied by the sour smell of ozone and burning plant matter mingling in the air. The intruder’s sleeve on the arm that the plant wrapped around is gone, their bare arm is _covered_ in blood from more than a dozen different puncture wounds but the stalk that held it is lying limp on the ground. Out of the corner of your eye you spot another person, swaying slightly behind the glass door, in the Price’s backyard. An inch taller than you, maybe, hair done up in a _very familiar_ bun. A light green glow illuminating her hands held out in front of her. Sparks dancing and flitting around them like insects.  
  
You blink and your attention is brought back inside at the sound of a vicious snarl, and all at once the image of the intruder trying to sprint away is burned into your retinas. One last stalk, thinner than the rest, already enthorned, reached out for them, and snagged their ski mask. It didn’t pull away the whole thing, but the intruder was looking you in the eye as they ran. The rip exposed a tuft of dirty blonde hair, and it’s then that you finally register the eyes that had stared at you. A cold, familiar, frightening steel-blue, narrowed in a hateful arch of superiority.  
  
_Nathan Prescott…_  
  
And then everything fades to black.  


≅≅≅

  
  
You come around to consciousness slowly, like a ship pulling into harbour. The first sense to return to you is smell, oddly enough. But what you do smell is comforting. _Chloe_. Everything that makes up her scent, the detergent Joyce uses, the slight cloying smell of cigarettes, her deodorant. But lingering in the background too is the subtle scent of gunpowder.  
  
The next thing you realise is that you’re _warm_. A blanket is draped over you, you’re on something soft, and you’re leaning against something like a big space heater that- you realize is _obviously_ Chloe. Finally, you blink a few times, and try to clear the grogginess from your eyes. Your hearing fades in, everything is still kind of distant, tinny after the lingering ringing of so many discharging firearms. But now you hear Chloe snoring lightly, and a gentle, rhythmic _click, click, click_ from your other side.  
  
You turn your head slightly, dark outside, you’re in Chloe’s room. You turn a little further, a pair of soft hands work needles through yarn. _Click, click, click._ The yarn is all light desaturated greens and yellows, soft, forest colours. You crane your neck upwards, and Kate smiles down at you.  
  
“Hi Max, you’re awake.” Her voice is soft, not intended to carry past you and her to the sleeping Chloe.  
  
You nod, and try to say something, but have to muffle a cough that follows and swallow a thick wad of phlegm. _Gross._ Throat clear, you say, “Kate, uh, hey.”  
  
She slowly stops her knitting and catches the end of her current project, laying it down next to her on Chloe’s bed. Then she points at you with one thick needle, “You know, you’re awfully lucky I set up Warning Flora around Chloe’s house.”  
  
You stare at her. “Warning… flora?”  
  
She smiles proudly, apparently misunderstanding your confusion. “Yep, why do you think the plants outside did fine, even though the inside ones died? I basically had to guerilla garden them to keep them set up like that.”  
  
“I… I don’t understand.” You say. Her expression falters.  
  
“Max… you can drop it, I’m like, _y’know_ ,” she glances at Chloe, still fast asleep, “you can _trust_ me.”  
  
The last memory you have slowly comes back to you. Wait… that plant… the stalks and the thorns… the glowing girl? Your eyes widen as comprehension dawns.  
  
“Kate… that plant thing, that was _you?_ ” You ask, staring at her.  
  
She stares right back, trying to gauge your honesty, maybe? Then she sighs and looks out the window. “Huh.” Back at you, piercingly. “You really… _don’t_ know, do you?”  
  
You’re not sure _what_ exactly you don’t know, but you _are_ sure about one thing. You absolutely do not know it.  
  
You shake your head. “Know about what?”  
  
Suddenly a life and exuberance you hadn’t seen on her since your first glimpse of her rolls over her face. She lifts up one knitting needle, gripping it like a sword, ‘pointy’ end up, and starts to spin the end in a slow circle.  
  
The air above the knitting needle twists and dances, churns within itself. A faint green haze seems to flicker into view as the other dim lights in the room fade in comparison. Suddenly, a burst of the same, trailing green sparks you had seen flitting around Kate in the backyard explode out of the middle. They fly around the room as Kate watches with a warm smile, before they come to hover, moving erratically up and down, before your face. They’re _looking_ at you.  
  
You look from them to Kate, asking with your eyes for an explanation.  
  
Her grin grows even wider, “About _magic._ ”  


≅≅≅  
  
  
 _Current Point: October 11th, 2013. Some time in the very early AMs._  
  


 

 

  
**End of Chapter Two - “Witch”**


	21. 3.01

**Start of Chapter 3 - “Shadows Settle”**

You stare at Kate. “Magic.”  
  
She nods, grin holding. “Magic.”  
  
You sigh and relax your neck, letting your head fall back to it’s comfortable position against Chloe’s chest. _I feel like everything just got a lot more complicated._ Complicated isn’t always bad, but you’re leery of being on the edge of the deep end.  
  
Kate stops doing her… floaty glowy orby thingy. A moment later, as the dim desk lamps illuminating the room fade back into prominence, you speak. “I, uh. Have some questions.”  
  
“I thought you might,” Kate chuckles, “shoot.”  
  
You think for a quiet moment, listening solely to Chloe’s soft breathing behind you and the gentle _click, click, click_ of Kate’s needles. The sound of wind blowing through rustling, dying leaves outside turns your thoughts outward.  
  
“First things first, before we get into the… can of magic worms,” you hear Kate let out a short giggle at that, “is everyone else okay?”  
  
Kate’s rhythmic _clicks_ stay a steady tempo as she speaks, “David’s a bit dinged up, but he’ll be fine, especially while I’m staying here. Everyone else is fine, you easily took the worst of it, but it sounds like that’s kinda what you do.”  
  
You ignore the backhanded compliment and jerk back at her with irritation. “Would you _stop_ just… saying mysterious shit like that and not explaining it? ‘Especially while I’m staying here’? Kate. What the hell does that mean? You can’t just say something like that and _not_ explain it while I’m so clearly out of the loop.” _Heh, loop. Time travel lingo._  
  
The _clicks_ pause for a moment as you lock eyes. Something cold seems to pass over her expression, but you don’t shrink back. Then her face melts, and she slouches down with a sigh. “Sorry, Max. You’re right. I’m just…” She hesitates, watching your face, and breaks eye contact to look out the window. “Anyway, yeah, everyone’s fine. You and David are both on the mend.”  
  
You nod and relax back into Chloe. “Good. Are you able to keep them safe tonight? I probably won’t be able to use my powers safely or consistently until at least tomorrow morning, so no do-overs.”  
  
One _click_ , a hesitation, then they resume. _Click click click._ “That won’t be a problem, I spent some time making sure we’ll _all_ have early warning and- I see that look. I’ll explain in a sec, once we get to the worms.”  
  
You allow yourself a chuckle. “Okay, fair.”  
  
You sigh. _Magic. I guess it’s not any more unbelievable than time powers. I’m used to those though, this is… new. Very, very, very new. I guess I had my first taste of it in the hospital, but even that feels like a dream now._ Here goes nothing. “So,” you start hesitantly, “... magic.”  
  
The _clicks_ stop abruptly, and you hear her put the needles on the ground next to the bed, probably along with her yarn project. She lies down on her side, but in the opposite direction to you and Chloe, so her head is at the foot of the bed, letting the two of you look at each other as you talk. “Magic,” she repeats simply, “what would you like to know?”  
  
“Um.” You’re not even sure where to start. “Catch me up with a primer? Like. Break it down for me, the base concept.”  
  
Kate nods, blonde hair spreading over the bedspread. “Right. I’ll try not to give you information overload with this.” She reaches down past the edge of the bed and furrows her brow. One of her knitting needles wiggles a bit, then lackadaisically rolls across the floor to Kate’s hand. Well. _Almost_ to Kate’s hand. You giggle a bit meanly as she has to stretch uncomfortably to reach it with one fingertip so she can just barely slide it bit by bit into her grip.  
  
Finally holding her prize, she rolls back to an upright position with a ‘ _Harumph_ ’ and a pout. “There’s a good first example, I _guess_.”  
  
You raise an eyebrow at her. “Good?”  
  
“ _Good_ for what I’m about to talk about.” She settles down and starts fiddling with her needle in her hands. Seems like more of an object to occupy her hands while she thinks about what to say right now. “So… magic.”  
  
You nod again, this is getting dumb. “Magic.” You say impatiently.  
  
“Sorry, sorry. It’s a big topic.” She purses her lips, then launches into it. “So. Uh. I’ll just drop this in your lap first. Fairies are real. Isn’t that cute? Most books call them ‘fae’ but some of the... _more_ modern ones stick with ‘fairy.’”  
  
You stare at her. “Fairies…” She nods. “Right,” you say. _Why not._  
  
“They aren’t exactly Tinkerbell though, well, the large, large majority of them aren’t.” You nod, not sure what else to do. “Older books called them ‘verdant energy,’ but that was misunderstanding both their origin and what we can do with them. The name stuck though, kinda. Pretty much every text refers to what I do as ‘Verdant magic.’”  
  
“You’re talking a lot about books about magic, but I’ve never seen any… legit ones.” You point out.  
  
She nods. “I’ll get to that. So what the older books thought was closer to a type of energy is _actually_ something modern books call _ambient fae_.” She’s just saying words and none of them mean anything to you. This is incredible. She continues though, blithely unaware, you get the feeling she doesn’t get to talk about this often. “So Fae, in general and overall, come into existence when living, thinking things feel emotion, _any_ emotion.”  
  
She’s losing you. But she keeps talking. “So after three point five _billion_ years of life on Earth, you’d imagine it’d be pretty crowded with Fae, right? Oh, I should mention. They don’t die. They just hang around, chillin’.” You wonder if her books would describe the fae as ‘chillin’’. “Well, you’d be _right_ , ambient fae are absolutely _everywhere_. They come from _anything_ that thinks to some degree, right? I don’t _think_ plants count but apparently that was kind of a point of contention between some medieval witch ladies and there’s a few essays arguing about it, _really_ cool stuff, I could lend them to yo-” Her voice hitches and she breaks eye contact, the excited light in her eyes fading for a moment.  
  
“I- Uh, sorry. I just-”  
  
“Kate,” you cut her off, “It’s okay, keep going.”  
  
She nods and recomposes herself. “Right. Um. So yeah, thinking, and specifically _feeling_ _emotions_ creates Fae, no matter how simplistic the emotion, ants even create them.” Huh, so ants instinctual urges count as emotions? Interesting. You guess. You don’t actually know. That might be really boring information. “So yeah! Three point five billion years of evolving mammals and fish, dinos, wolves, bears, elephants, mammoths, and so on, all feeling fear and anger and excitement and whatever else, lots of Fae around!”  
  
You nod. “So they thought it was energy because there was so much of it?”  
  
Kate smiles excitedly, “Yes! Exactly! They thought it came from like, plants or something. Silly, really. Anyway, the Fae that come from animals and insects and stuff are _not_ like Tinkerbell, they’re kinda intelligent, but they’re closer to particularly… astute bees. Or something.” You’re not sure what an astute bee would look like, but somehow the phrase does make sense to you. “The ones that _are_ like Tinkerbell come only from humans. They were only really considered a separate thing from Ambient Fae in more recent texts, so the term _I’ve_ seen used for them is ‘Sapient Fae,’ which has a nice duality with ‘Ambient,’ I think, which is probably why the author chose it.”  
  
You shrug, not willing to derail this any further by talking about language choice. She flops down onto her back again. “I haven’t actually had a Sapient Fae show itself to me, but they’re definitely around! They only get created by _really_ strong emotions, and like I said, only by humans, so there’s a lot less of them around, compared to Ambient Fae.”  
  
“So. Okay, yeah. Fairies,” You say, “But where does your magic come in?”  
  
Kate looks momentarily annoyed at the interruption, but you have a feeling she’d keep going on all morning about this, and you don’t have time or patience for that.  
  
“Well, basically, Ambient Fae are borne of emotions, right?” You nod. “Right. But human’s emotions are much more complex than animals, so when _we_ feel emotions, of _any_ strength, it kind of…” She thinks for a moment. “Tints? Colours? Affects? The Ambient Fae around us, normally it’s not much, just a couple feet and the effect dissipates.”  
  
She sits up suddenly. “But if you really _practice_ for _years and years_ and get _really_ good at being emotionally honest with yourself and _really_ good at feeling emotions strongly at will?” She spreads her arms wide. “You can affect a _whooole bunch_ of Fae at once! At that point it becomes a kind of… emotional feedback loop, with you at the center, because as much as Fae are influenced by human emotions, enough Fae of the same ‘tint’ around also affect us. But yeah! So you’ll be at the center of this vortex of whatever emotion and then you can kinda… pour that emotion into a vessel, shaped by your _conceptual intention_ for it, but also by the emotion you’re feeling.”  
  
You stare at her for a moment. Then let out a long exhale. “Uh, okay. And what does that do?”  
  
“It depends! I mostly use it on my tea, or, um… weed. But it can have all sorts of effects. For instance, I made a batch of tea for you and David that’s gonna help you a _lot_ with healing up, which is what I meant earlier.”  
  
_Ah._ You nod, “Thanks Kate.”  
  
“No worries, no worries.” She waves you off.  
  
You frown though, remembering the battle. “But if that’s what you mostly do, how’d you do that crazy plant stuff?”  
  
She hesitates for a second, a frown crossing her face. She shrugs, “I dunno.”  
  
“What.”  
  
“I really don’t. I know Fae respond well to _really_ high intensity emotions, and I was _really_ feeling it down there. If I had to guess, my emotions were strong enough that I was able to just kinda… do crazy shit? Instinctively?” She pauses for a second, then her face lights up. “Ouh! Maybe I got the attention of some Sapient Fae, and they helped me out?”  
  
She looks at you with wide, excited eyes. In the face of such enthusiasm, you can’t bring yourself to crush it. “A-haha. Uh, yeah. Maybe.” She seems nonplussed though, and grins and nods. You decide to change topics, _fast._ “So uh. Who taught you? Actually, can, uh, _verdant_ magic be taught at all? Or is it like, inherited?”  
  
She laughs lightly. “ _Anyone_ can use verdant magic, technically.” She pauses. “Actually, one exception. I tried again and again, but-” She looks at the blue haired girl snoring behind you. “Chloe and them just refused to take to each other. Like her emotions still influence them, _really strongly_ , to the point that it’s hard to do my own magic around her, but it’s like Chloe… repulses them, or something.”  
  
She sighs. “I- I’m sorry Max. There’s a kind of… selfish reason I was being a bitch to you.”  
  
You blink at the sudden topic shift. “Uh, why’s that?”  
  
“I… I wanted to be the first person to show Chloe magic.” She slouches back down to lie down again. “She wouldn’t believe me when I just _told_ her, she thought it was just like, Wiccan stuff, and I couldn’t get her to start channeling them herself, so I’ve been trying to puzzle out a way to show her without getting interrupted by her own emotional response.” She laughs a bit mirthlessly. “I guess I got my wish last night, huh? Not to show her first, but to do so at all.”  
  
She sighs and continues, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “When you showed up, I thought you must be like, another Witch or something. Like, a _really_ powerful one, I guess.”  
  
That brings another question to mind. “So, _am_ I using magic?”  
  
She props herself up on her elbows and looks at you closely. “I’m… not sure. Your emotional effect on the ambient fae is _really_ small. I figured you were suppressing it or something, but even when you seemed kinda upset in my dorm, _barely_ anything. That’s… all the insight I have, I’m afraid.”  
  
You frown and sigh, another non-answer. But Kate perks up. “I’ll take a look through my older books again though! They’re harder reads but they really cover a lot more topics than the modern ones. There might be something illuminating in there.”  
  
You shrug and nod, why not? “So are there any other magic users in town? Did they teach you?”  
  
Kate hesitates and breaks eye contact, then sits up and swings her legs over the side of the bed. “Uh, no. I’m… I’m self taught.”  
  
You stare at her for a moment. “Self… taught. Magic?”  
  
“Magic.” She affirms. That’s getting old. “I got my start as a kid when my gram left me my first book. I don’t even know if she had read it, but I managed to sneak it past my parents. If I had gotten it even a couple years later… I dunno, I might not have been so open. But I was a kid, so even the fantastical instructions seemed, like, legit.”  
  
“So you’ve never met another magical… person… witch person?” You ask.  
  
She shakes her head. “No, I’ve just been collecting more and more books. They’re easy to find, once you know how to look for them.”  
  
You sigh. Great. Magic is real and all you have is a book-learned, self-taught witch to tell you about it.  
  
“Well what about Nat-” You cut yourself off, that might raise questions. “What about the masked dude who attacked us?”  
  
Kate watches you for a moment, then says, “That’s gonna be another ‘I dunno,’ Max. I have _no idea_ what he was doing, but it wasn’t Verdant Magic.”  
  
You nod, and she continues, “Maybe he had, like, taser thingys in his knives… and arm… and boots?” She says, then before you have a chance to respond, “No. Wait, that’s dumb. I have no idea. Sorry. Sensing Ambient Fae isn’t an… exact science, but where he did that… blue thingy on my plants, I’d _swear_ that for a second there was no Ambient Fae there.”  
  
You look at her for a moment, uncomprehending. She tuts irritably. “That _doesn’t_ happen Max, it’s like an unpredicted solar eclipse, I guess. There’s _billions_ of years of Ambient Fae around us, for there to be _absolutely none_ in _any_ space at all? It should be impossible.” She shakes her head. “And it’s not like Fae can die or anything, so I dunno what happened.”  
  
“What actually activated your… warning flowers, or whatever?” You wonder if she’d have come if Jefferson had drugged you that first time.  
  
“Warning _Flora_ , and it was when someone with ‘hostile intentions’ entered the yard. I started heading over immediately, but the Blackwell shuttle was on the other side of the Bay.”  
  
You nod, Chloe’s house isn’t exactly _close_ to Blackwell on foot. Then you sigh, again. You’re like a furnace with the sighs these days. You feel like you’ve reached as much as your brain can take of crazy magic shit.  
  
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this is a _lot_ to take in, Kate.” How the turntables.  
  
“I know.” She says simply.  
  
“What do… _you_ want out of this Kate?” You regulate your voice, how you feel about this kinda depends on the answer. “Why are you even _going_ to Blackwell, anyway? You can do _magic._ ”  
  
She laughs outright at that, then muffles herself as Chloe stirs slightly before her snoring resumes. “Magic doesn’t exactly pay the bills, Max. Maybe it _should_ , but…”  
  
She hesitates, casting her eyes out the window a moment, then back to you. “It’s kinda… fatalistic of me. But there’s something I noticed about my books.” Her voice drops to a lower tone. “You know how I was saying there’s _old_ books, and then _more_ modern ones? That’s cause I can’t find _any_ books on real Verdant magic written or published after 1945.”  
  
You frown. “That doesn’t necessarily prove anything.”  
  
She shakes her head. “ _Maybe_ not, but I have a _lot_ of books. And believe me Max, I’ve been searching. It freaks me out, honestly, with the whole history of Witches being, y’know, burned and drowned and shit. Why would they just stop after ‘45? It just… doesn’t make sense to me. They wouldn’t just decide to stop writing after the evidence I have of literally _centuries_ of writing tradition.”  
  
You frown, and turn it over in your mind. _I guess that is kinda odd._ “Okay, it’s a little weird,” you concede.  
  
You’re both silent for a moment, Chloe’s snoring a calm, steady backdrop.  
  
You speak, “One last question, then I need to think about this.”  
  
“Shoot.”  
  
“Could Verdant Magic be used… to stop a giant storm?”  
  
She props herself on her elbows, thinks for a moment, then chuckles. “Maybe, I guess, if you hated the storm enough.”  
  
You hold her gaze for a moment, then nod again, and lean back into Chloe.  
  


≅≅≅  
 _Current Point: October 11th, 2013. Early AMs._


	22. 3.02

_Oh man… it’s just so much to take in._ You look over at Kate, who’s absently fiddling with the needle in her hand, just sort of spinning it around and flicking it between fingers. _I guess it helps her focus, or something._ You sigh. _I don’t think I’m angry at her. I mean, she was kind of awful to me at first, but I guess there’s more going on here than just bitchiness._ Bitchy… never a word you thought you’d apply to Kate Marsh. _Plus, I guess she did save my life last night, even if it was more for Chloe than me…_ You think about it. No… that’s unfair. From what you’ve seen of this Kate, you doubt she’d stand by and let you get chopped up if she was in any position to stop it, even if she didn’t know you. You pause. No, not just this Kate, _your_ Kate wouldn’t either, she might be more frightened, and might have less… ability to help, but she wouldn’t stand idly by for a stranger under attack either. Thinking about the Kate you remember locks your thoughts in.   
  
This _is_ Kate. Different from the one you knew? Sure. But Chloe raised a good point back at the dorms. What’s the difference between losing contact with someone for years on end, and meeting them again to see how much a different person they are, and you travelling to… well, another world, where this Kate had the chance to change and grow as a person from the one you knew? Surprisingly little, you think. _I guess the main difference is for those five years I didn’t talk to Chloe we were moving… horizontally through time, while for me meeting this Kate, I just moved vertically._ Time travel is weird, and trying to come to terms with this kind of thing is one of the weirdest parts. _I’d love to see ‘my’ Kate again, but if I cared for her, and if I cared about seeing her be happy, I should want the same for every version of her._  
  
You nod to yourself finally, mind set. Okay, it’s time for some Max to Kate truth bo-  
  
“You really wear your heart on your sleeve.” Kate interrupts your thoughts, a curious bent to her words.  
  
You regather your thoughts and chuckle lightly. “Not really something I’ve been accused of before.”  
  
“Really?” Kate sits up and leans in, “I seriously just watched you go through a whole facial journey, all shrugging and nodding to yourself too.”  
  
“Hah, right, sorry. Was just… thinking about some things.”  
  
She nods, “I figured.”  
  
"Before I get into them though... what _actually_ happened with Jefferson and his goons after I passed out?"  
  
Kate smiles. "Cops came and picked'em up. Kinda unfortunate, but in David's words, 'We don't have the resources or legal authority to run a POW camp,' he's a bit of a weirdo sometimes, huh?"  
  
You nod, "Truly." _So the cops picked up Jefferson and Co.... I hope the Government is outside of the Prescott's reach... it'd suck if we just delivered them right back into their hands._  
  
Not much to be done about that right now, unfortunately. The conversation peters out, and you gather your thoughts.  
  
“So… Kate.” You start, then hesitate, trying to shape what you’re going to say to not seem too condescending, _or_ too familiar. “First, thank you for… for trusting me, with all of that. I know you had some… misgivings, I guess, at first, but I can tell you’re being honest with me and even if it’s a _lot_ to take in, thank you for that, seriously.”  
  
She nods, “It’s the least I can do, Max.”  
  
“Right,” you acknowledge. “But… since you shared that with me, I… I have something I should share with you. Chloe knows, but it’s kinda… personal, to me.”  
  
She watches you with a bit of trepidation as you continue. “So you remember how I told you about how I lived this week before? But things were kind of… different, and you were kind of a more quiet, churchy girl and stuff?”  
  
She nods, frowning. You sigh, “Well, that was the truth, but it wasn’t the _whole_ truth.” You look her in the eyes. “Kate, not only have I lived this week before, I’ve lived through it _fourteen times._ ”  
  
Her eyes widen slightly, and you see her eyebrows narrow as she does some mental math. “Yeah,” you say, “two months, or so, of these same five days.”  
  
“But…” she struggle with the question, as if not even sure why she’s asking, “why?”  
  
You smile at her forlornly, and nestle back into your best friend. “For Chloe.” You say simply. “At the end of each week, something… arrived. Something deadly. And the Choice I had to make… Kate… it wasn’t fair.” _Rain. Buffeting winds. Laminated pictures and tally marks._ You shake yourself. Kate’s watching you with wide eyes. “Kate… I know you were worried about me ditching Chloe again, but I swear to you-” You lean in now, away from the soft warmth of Chloe, flinching slightly from a jolt of pain in your injured side. “I would do _anything_ for her. I am _not_ leaving Chloe any time soon.”  
  
She nods slowly. “I- Okay. Okay Max, I’m… sorry for how I acted, again. That’s…” She shakes her head now, then looks up to meet your gaze. “Once you’re able to… handle talking about specifics better, I’d like to hear more about those other weeks you lived.”  
  
You blink, frowning at the oddly specific request. There were things you’d done that you weren’t proud of but… well, you guess you can censor those, not like she’d know the difference. “Sure,” you say, “when things calm down a bit, sure.”  
  
The other half of your thought reoccurs to you. “Oh yeah, and in those other weeks, if it wasn’t obvious, you absolutely were _not_ a witch, do… you have any idea why?”  
  
She thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. “Nah, it’s too-” Then pauses. “Actually… I dunno. It’s weird trying to… extrapolate other ways my life could’ve gone… but maybe if my Gram had lived a bit longer, I wouldn’t have inherited that first book that got me started? Or even if I did, you’re clearly aware my family is pretty religious, without the book by then I might’ve been more bought into the whole religion thing.” She shrugs. “But that’s assuming magic even _exists_ in the same way where you came from.”  
  
You nod, “How… did your grandma die, incidentally? If you don’t mind me asking I mean.”  
  
She sighs. “Cancer, it’s apparently a wonder she lived as long as she did, she was born in New Mexico, right around the area where the atom bombs were tested, and right around they time they were starting to _be_ tested.”  
  
“Ah.” You say. “...I’m sorry.”  
  
She chuckles quietly. “It’s okay Max, it’s been a long time.”  
  
You inadvertently stretch yourself out, shuddering like a cat as a yawn suddenly overtakes you. Kate grins. “I think it’s time for bed, Miss Time Warrior, you need to sleep to _really_ heal those cuts.”  
  
You grumble and try to do an impression of Kate, “‘Hey Max, cool powers, oh by the way, magic is fucking real, anyway, time for bed, goodnite!’”  
  
Kate suppresses a loud laugh at your impression of her whispery voice, “Okay, that was pretty good, but seriously, beddy-bye time, goodnight Max.”  
  
“Good night, Kate.” You mumble, already starting to drift off into a deep, fortunately dreamless sleep.  


≅≅≅

  
You awaken with a start, your hands both in fists tightly balling up the sheet underneath you. _October 11th… Oh no, I slept in_. _What time is it?_ You force yourself to sit up- _alone, Chloe and Kate must be downstairs-_ and your muscles _ache_ in protest of the sudden movement. You flinch, expecting a jolt of pain from your wounded side-  
  
But it doesn’t come. You glance down, curiously. Sure enough, when you pull up your shirt you see gauze wrapped all the way around your lower torso, but they look clean, no blood soaking through. Your side still feels tender, but you decide to let it be for now, since it doesn’t seem to be too serious.  
  
Your mind snaps back into action though, you cast your eyes around the messy room, and see your best bet is Chloe’s laptop. You struggle to your feet. _God, everything hurts._ And make your way to the desk, brightly lit by the October sun. _Brightly lit?_ You banish the thought and flip open the laptop, tapping your foot impatiently as Windows 7 boots up. _Come on._   
  
11:19AM. _An hour before I got out of the Dark Room and called Warren in that… crazy mess of a first loop. By now the storm was already wrecking Arcadia Bay._ You finally look up, out the window. A clear Fall day looks back at you. Wind blowing gently, sunlight warm, but undercut by the cool breeze. Oranges and reds all through Arcadia Bay. You lean forward over the desk, and see… David. Out in the house’s front yard. Raking leaves. _I guess it has to get done some time_. You can see his black eye from here.  
  
So… nothing. The storm isn’t here. _What does that mean? Am I… am I home free? Do I not have to… worry about it anymore?_ Part of you is relieved. _More_ than relieved. But another part… _I still have to be careful, things are different this time, like FutureMe said. It’s not just the, uh, magic and stuff. The anomalies were weird too, the storm could just be delayed. I have to keep an eye out for_ anything _that could point to it still coming._  
  
You absently start to go to scratch an itch on your cheek, but freeze as you remember your injury from last night. Instead, you gingerly feel around where the itch is coming from, where you rewound the knife back through your face, and you _do_ flinch as your fingers graze the stitches that must be holding the wound closed. _A couple more scars for the collection, I might be able to out-badass Chloe if this keeps up._ You think about that for a moment. _Buuuut… I think I’ll still try not to make a habit of getting slashed by Teenage Magic Ninja Prescotts._  
  
You start to pull out the last of Rachel’s clothes that Chloe still has lying around, but an absentminded hand that you run through your hair has you stop short. _Ew. Greasy_. _Maaaybe it is time for a shower._ You look at the door to Chloe’s room, then back at the clothes, then shrug to yourself. _Fuck it, no storm means Max gets a free shower, I deserve a treat._  


≅≅≅

  
A while later, after a warm shower that felt _heavenly_ on your sore muscles, you’re dressed in another of Rachel’s outfits, stepping down the stairs. _I’m glad the banisters got rewound after Nathan jumped through them, it’d suck if Joyce and David had to pay to repair them._  
  
You hop down the last step, get hit by the aroma of bacon and pancakes, and head into the kitchen.  
  
Joyce is still in her PJ’s, but has an apron draped over top. She turns to you as you enter with a tired smile, “Mornin’ sweetcheeks.”   
  
You smile back, “Morning, Joyce. No Two Whales today?”   
  
She shakes her head, and carefully starts prying up some _perfectly_ fluffy pancakes. “After last night I… well, I figured we’d all be wakin’ up pretty late, and it’d be a cry’in shame for you superheros to start your day off on an empty stomach!” She finishes scooping the last pancake from the pan, and makes a sour expression. “Or worse, _pop-tarts_.”  
  
You laugh and lean against the fridge. “Thanks Joyce, but I’m no hero. I just-”  
  
Joyce tuts, interrupting you, “That is just the thing a superhero would say.” Before you can protest, she continues, “Anway! Brekky’s ready, could you get David from the front yard, and Chloe and… hm…”  
  
“Kate?” You offer.  
  
“Right, Kate.” She nods to herself. “Chloe and _Kate_ from the back?”  
  
You smile. “Sure thing Joyce, back in a sec.” _The fetch quests never end._ You don’t really mind though, it’s… nice, you guess, to have a bit of domesticity after the craziness of last night.  
  
You turn to start heading to the front and-  
  
Oh. _Oh._ _That’s pretty conspicuous._ The two flowers that Kate had used to fight off Nathan are… closer to vines now. And you _do_ mean vines, plural. What you remember at two single, thick stalks with other long protrusions has become a veritable ecosystem of it’s own, an array of twisting leaves and creepers and blooms- _all identical to the flowers that they grew from-_ cover the whole length of the wall behind the couch, and crawl a bit onto the ceiling too.   
  
Joyce sidles up next to you as you stare in amazement. “Yeah, we ain’t quite sure what to do with the dang thing now.” She sighs. “The flowers on’em remind me of Will.”  
  
You hear the sadness in her voice, and turn to look at her. “Joyce…”  
  
She shakes her head and blinks away some tears. “In a good way, at least. I know it was that… _Kate,_ right, Kate girl that was makin’ ‘em grow but…” A small smile works it’s way onto her face. “Part’a’me can’t help but think of it as Will tryin’ to protect his family.”  
  
You’ve felt grief, more grief than anyone else your age, probably. But you know somehow that the well of sadness that Joyce experiences over William is far beyond your years. So, not sure what else to do, you just stand next to her and rub her back.  
  
A moment later she sniffles, and stands a bit straighter. “Sorry dear, shouldn’t be makin’ ya see an old woman cry like that when you got so much on your plate.”  
  
“Joyce,” you smile at her, “the only plate I care about right now is the one that’s going to be on that table in a second.” Then a bit more softly, “It’s alright. I miss him too.”  
  
She nods slowly, "You're a good kid Max... he would've loved to see how you've grown up," then she gives one last sniffle, and hurries off to finish plating breakfast. _Poor Joyce. She does really like David, I’m sure of that. But she loved… no, loves William so much too. And with her worrying about Chloe as well… she has a lot to deal with._  
  
You give the thriving vine system one last glance, and head out front to see David.  


≅≅≅

  
David is hoisting armfuls of leaves into large paper compost bags when you find him out front. “Hey David.”  
  
He jumps at the sound of your voice, and turns his head so his good eye can look at you. “Max, morning. Didn’t see you there.”  
  
You nod, “Sorry ‘bout that. Your eye holding up okay?”  
  
He deposits his armful of leaves into his current compost bag and stands up straight. “It’s swollen all to Hell, but it’ll be fine. I’ve had worse in the line of duty.” _David really loves his military sayings._   
  
You give him a smile, “Thanks David, really.”   
  
He stands there awkwardly for a moment before responding, “Uh, you’re welcome, Max. And uh. Thank… you.” He looks away suddenly, and puts his hands on his hips, staring at the still somewhat sizeable pile of leaves left. “Did you need something?”  
  
“Oh yeah, breakfast is ready, Joyce is just serving it.”  
  
He nods. “Right, I’ll be in ASAP, just have to finish putting these leaves away before they get blown back around.” _ASAP? Jeez._  
  
You roll your eyes, and flex your right hand. _I’ve had a night to recover, let’s see how we’re doing._ You stride over to his pile, take a big armful of leaves-  
  
“What are you doing? I’ll handle this, Max.” You ignore him and walk it over to the compost bag, stuffing it in messily. Then, you reach for the threads. _Here goes…_   
  
And they come easily into your grasp, and twisting them? It’s like pulling on wet spaghetti. Or… something. Maybe not the best metaphor, but they are _easy_ to manipulate, you almost overshoot where you want to rewind to due to your marvelling at the ease of rewinding.  
  
“-before they get blown back around.”  
  
You sigh and take another armful of leaves. Maybe you’ll mention how easy rewinding is right now to Kate, she might have an idea what’s up.  
  
A few Max-Minutes later, but only a couple of ‘real’ seconds, you’re finished. You walk back into position and execute your final rewind with barely a thought.   
  
“-before they get blown… back… around.” David hesitates as, armful by armful, the pile in front of him diminishes and the bag behind him fills. You’d staggered your rewinds, more for show than anything.  
  
He grunts and turns back to you. “Well, guess I’m heading in _now_.” He shakes his head and mutters, “Time travelers…”  
  
You giggle and walk behind him, rewind less than a second, and give him a gentle shove. “Go on, she’s waiting for you.”  
  
He staggers forward with a start, then looks back at you and fixes you with a glare. It only lasts a second though, before he slouches into a guarded chuckle. “Right, seeya inside, soldier.” _Don’t know how I feel about being called soldier…_ but he’s already gone inside.  
  
You pause and look out over the neighbourhood. You can see a few curious eyes in various windows and on assorted porches peering back before hurriedly returning to whatever business they have to do. _They probably heard the gunshots last night, nosy neighbours and all._ You frown. _Did any of them see me teleporting around just then?_   
  
The thought bothers you for a second, but you shrug to yourself. _If they did, so what? Who am I hiding from at this point that doesn’t already know I’m here._ Then you head to the side-gate to the backyard.  


≅≅≅

  
You enter the backyard, and frown for a second as you fail to spot Chloe and Kate. _Did they head inside already?_ But-  
  
_Ah, there they are._ They’re lying down in the grass next to the swingset, shoulder to shoulder. For a second, something inside of you bristles at their _very close_ proximity to one another, but you force yourself to relax. _No, they’re friends here, that’s a normal thing for friends to do. Just gals being pals._  
  
You step forward, making sure to hit some crunchy leaves on the way to announce your presence.   
  
Chloe sits up and looks at you first, “Hey Max!” She pauses as she takes in your outfit, then whistles. “Lookin’ good!”  
  
You grin at her, “Thanks Chlo.” Rachel _did_ know her fashion. Not only was the blue plaid overshirt you left unbuttoned great for keeping your arms and shoulders warm, but the layered t-shirts, one black, one red, underneath were perfect for keeping your chest _just_ warm enough in the Fall weather.  
  
Kate sits up then, and looks you over with a frown. “Hm. I don’t think blue is your colour, Max.”  
  
_Uh, wow._ Chloe turns incredulously to Kate, “Seriously dude?”  
  
Kate just looks at Chloe with evident confusion for a moment, before her expression clears and she blushes, starting to stutter, “Oh- Oh no, no. I meant- I didn’t mean-” She looks _totally_ panicked all of a sudden, “What I- I meant to say was- Ugh, sorry, uh. No, you _do_ look good Max, I- I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”  
  
You stare at her. “...thanks?”  
  
“I just- I think warmer colours _really_ suit you, like the red plaid from yesterday, you looked _great_.” You feel warmth rise to your cheeks at the unexpected compliment, she really emphasized the ‘great’. She breaks eye contact and looks away as she continues, “I think it’s like, your hair tone or something.” You’re… getting the feeling this Kate isn’t actually quite as suave as she’s able to appear to be when she knows more than you about something.  
  
“Aaaanyway,” Chloe says, “What’s up Maximus?”  
  
“Oh yeah, breakfast is served.” You say with a grin. The other two girls both hop up excitedly.  
  
“Sweet!”  
  
“Let’s go!”  
  
And in a moment you’re left standing alone in the Price house’s backyard. Despite your warm layers, you shiver a bit as the wind blows. _I wonder how safe we actually are right now… they were able to just show up last night. And Nathan… he just came in through an upstairs window, and I get the feeling he didn’t use the ladder like I had to._  
  
You shrug again dismissively. Not much use worrying about it right now, not until you’ve had breakfast at least.  


≅≅≅

  
Unsurprisingly, you’re the last one to the table, and everyone else has already begun to dig in. Lively chatter in between bites sets a relaxed, familiar soundscape to the meal. The gently sweet smell that you assume has settled in the room due to William’s newly grown flowers is just the icing on an incredibly comforting cake.  
  
For a second, a dark, forbidden thought flashes across your mind like lightning. _I want cake._ But you suppress it just as quickly. Being a time traveler does _not_ give you cake for breakfast privileges, especially when Joyce has already cooked a whole breakfast for you.  
  
You happily chow down on the perfectly textured pancakes in front of you, decorated with _real_ maple syrup. _So goooood._ And wash down your bites with swigs from the big mug of black coffee Joyce got for you, earning an approving nod from David.   
  
Without letting yourself think too specifically about the previous night, you idly ask David, “Have the cops called to follow up on picking up Jeffershit and the others last night?”  
  
David shakes his head as the other conversation at the table fades to listen. “Not yet, could just be taking their time processing them. I’ll give them a call if they haven’t made contact by 1300.” _Jesus, military time too?_  
  
You nod though, “Sounds good.” Then you look around the table, it seems like you still have everyone’s attention. You sigh internally, and grimace internally, then you grimace externally for good measure. “Alright, first, I wanna thank you, _all_ of you, I… I don’t know what would’ve happened if me and Chloe hadn’t come here yesterday, or if any of you hadn’t helped.”  
  
Four growing smiles show that your thanks is welcome, but _probably_ unnecessary, they all stay quiet though, apparently expecting a speech. _Hoh boy._ “But second… we’re at kind of a weird place now, right? I’m pretty sure the Prescotts are after me, and they _clearly_ have resources and power, I think last night was their first stab-” You frown and put your hand on your side, “-pun not intended, at trying to grab me, the ‘easy’ way.” Everyone nods, David looking a little put out, Joyce a little lost.  
  
“But I think if me and Chloe-” You pause and look towards the blond haired girl at the table. “-... and Kate continue to stay here, they’ll find some way to grab us, while making it look legal enough that no one asks any questions when we disappear. We _can’t_ give them time for that.”  
  
“So what are you suggesting?” Asks David, scratching at his bushy mustache.  
  
“I… don’t know.” You admit. “I’m open to suggestions.”  
  
Silence for a moment, then Chloe is the first to speak. “You remember what we were talking about last night? Before we went in the garage?” You nod. “How about that? We find some way to make money, and try to make a safehouse of some kind? Buy it under pseudonyms, fake bank accounts, all that good stuff.” You have _no idea_ how to go about _any_ of that good stuff, but you have a feeling Chloe knows where to start.  
  
You frown though. “What if they come here anyway? They could still go after Joyce and David.”  
  
Chloe joins you in frowning. “Hm. True.” You’re glad you’re having this discussion in front of the two of them. _I think if they weren’t here, Chloe would’ve just brushed that aside, then felt awful if something did happen for not thinking of it._  
  
Kate speaks up then, “Actually, I think between the new warning systems I set up, your time powers, and Chloe’s truck, we- or at least _you_ , Max- could get here well before anything actually happened, as long as we stay in or around Arcadia Bay.”  
  
You nod, and start to say, “Okay, that’s goo-”  
  
But Kate cuts you off, evidently not done. “But that said, I don’t think that’s the best use of our time right now. Who’s to say the Prescotts don’t secretly have ears in all the real estate companies in the Bay? I think we’d be better served basing out of here and starting to try to investigate from here, even if it does mean things are a little more cramped.”  
  
“Hold on,” Chloe objects, “If we start just saying ‘Who’s to say the Prescotts don’t have fingers in _whatever_ ’ about fucking everything, then we’ll just be paralyzed. I don’t give a shit how powerful they are, we’ll find a way around them, there’s _always_ loopholes.”  
  
Joyce and David have been silent till now, but David speaks up first. “I think it’d be good for you girls to exercise some independence. Me and Joyce can hold down this fort, but some things you can only learn by going out on your own.”  
  
Joyce frowns though. “Normally, I’d agree, believe you me, but I don’t want these poor girls having to do Chlo’s laundry for her, she doesn’t even do it here!”  
  
Chloe starts to angrily object, but you elbow her in the ribs and force a giggle. “Don’t worry Joyce, I’d make sure to crack the whip at her.”  
  
Chloe looks irritated for a second after you jab her, but settles into a smarmy expression as you talk. “Oh, _will_ you now?” She says, voice heavy with insinuation.  
  
You roll your eyes as you hear Kate suppress a giggle and fight down the blush you feel coming to your cheeks. “C-Can it, you. Anyway, let’s just finish eating and we’ll decide then.” Everyone nods, and you fall into amiable silence, save for the chewing of a delicious breakfast.


	23. 3.03

With a full breakfast rumbling in your bellies, you, Kate, and Chloe all sit sprawled across the living room. You’ve been giving the ‘going forward’ decision some thought, and you think you know what to do. “Sorry Kate, I think we need to establish ourselves before we go full Nancy Drew mode.”  
  
She shrugs and nods, “You’re the time traveler, if this is a shitty idea you can just head back and change your mind.”  
  
_It’s not quite that simple… but yeah, that’s true._  
  
Chloe has an excited gleam in her eyes. “You two stay down here, let the master work. I’ll try to find some houses that _aren’t_ being sold through Arcadia’s major real estate firms.”  
  
Before you can object, she’s bounding on up the stairs, two at a time. You turn back to Kate.  
  
“Tea?” She asks.  
  
You prod your injured side and wince. “Yes please.”  
  


≅≅≅

  
  
Two hours later, during which you checked on Chloe just to be sure she wasn’t ganked by a Magic Ninja, she finally joins you and Kate downstairs, her laptop balancing precariously on top of one arm. Kate glances up at her, “Done already?” She asks sardonically.  
  
Chloe gives Kate the finger with her free hand as she plops down between the two of you on the couch, “Hey, you try finding real estate in the Bay that’s being sold by those ‘sell your own house’ sites _and_ fits what we’re looking for. I’m pretty sure half of Arcadia Bay hasn’t even _heard_ about computers yet.”  
  
All three of you chuckle at that, before Chloe takes the lead again. “Right, so. I’ve got a few different options here for us.” She pulls up her first tab. “This one’s the simplest, one floor suburban place, one of those postwar prefabs, the lady actually has a picture of the original advertisement uploaded, she says it’s layout number four.”  
  
Chloe [pulls up the old advertisement](https://i.ibb.co/d5Kwxxb/suburban.jpg), and you and Kate both lean in curiously. “It looks… small.” Kate says hesitantly.  
  
Chloe nods though, “It is, but it’s in a good location, we can get just about anywhere in the Bay hella fast from it. Plus, it’s not _quite_ as small as it looks, the basement is _still_ unfinished, apparently, but it’s just a big open room with bare floor and walls the size of the house’s footprint. We could definitely make a Time Control Room down there or something.”  
  
“Does it have much of a yard?” Kate asks.  
  
Chloe grins, “Classic white picket fence and backyard big enough to grill and toss the ol’ pigskin around.”  
  
“Right…” You say. _It’s small, but a central location is a good thing if any real emergencies come up…_  
  
Chloe clicks over to the ad page for the house. “It’s also cheap as hell, see? Compared to the other options especially.”  
  
“True,” you sigh, “I’m still not sure how we’re gonna get the cash to pay for a whole _house_.”  
  
“We’ll figure something out Max, between the three of us.” Kate says. “What’s next Chloe?”  
  
“ _Next_ is a bit more isolated, a _bunch_ more expensive, but a lot bigger too.” She pulls up a [ground floor plan](https://i.ibb.co/9pZZLLj/rural-ground.jpg), a [second story plan](https://i.ibb.co/cbXjHXx/rural-second.jpg), then finally the [frontal shot](https://i.ibb.co/b1TLrr9/rural-front.jpg) used in the advertising.  
  
You whistle, “That… is a nice house.”  
  
“Right? And it comes with a ton of acres that we can probably just use for whatever, if we really wanted to. There’s a basement too, but I think it’ll be the same story as the suburban one.”  
  
You nod, “Got it, I’m… guessing it’s expensive though?”  
  
She gives you a pained grin, “You bet.”  
  
“Okay, hit us with the last one.”  
  
Finally, Chloe pulls up a [picture](https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/5dac/7593/3312/fd45/e600/013b/slideshow/CASA_HILCA_DIFRENNA_2880-8.jpg?1571583367) of a modern looking, _expensive_ looking house.  
  
“Uh, wow.” There’s no _way_ you can afford this thing… unless you can?  
  
Chloe nods. “Right? Check out the plans too.” She pulls [them](https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/5dac/74c6/3312/fd22/e700/048e/slideshow/Planta_baja.jpg?1571583161) [up.](https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/5dac/74a4/3312/fd22/e700/048d/slideshow/Planta_alta.jpg?1571583127)  
  
“Do houses like this even exist in the Bay?” Kate asks.  
  
“Only recently,” Chloe says, “Big new rich person housing development up north. This one is actually even _more_ remote from most of the town than the rural one.”  
  
“I… see it’s big.” You say, “But if it’s remote, what else does it have going for it?”  
  
“Well, aside from owning a fucking _awesome_ bigass house, I was thinking the location might have it’s own ups.” You quirk an eyebrow at her. “It’s the _rich_ part of town, right? Maybe there’s an in on the Prescotts up there. Hell, we could be neighbours with their summer home!” She pauses. “Though… that might actually be shittier for us than them, I guess.”  
  
You all nod at that, last night’s break-in still fresh in your minds. “A-Anyway, thanks Chloe, _seriously_ , this is a lot and I wouldn’t have even known where to start.”  
  
She grins and ruffles your hair condescendingly, “No worries sport, aren’t you glad you’ve got an adult here to take care of this stuff for you?”  
  
You force a frown to suppress your embarrassed smile and endure her hair-mussing assault. “If I rewind time enough, one day I’ll be older than you, better watch it, punk.”  
  
Kate’s voice snaps you both out of your banter, “So, what are you thinking Max?”  
  
Chloe finally stops as you lean back to consider your options. Each has their pros and cons, but any of them _should_ do for now. Your main worry is the money, if you have to spend a lot of effort rewinding and photojumping to figure out how to Acquire Dosh, it could leave you drained if push comes to shove before you’re ready.  
  
_But… these aren’t my only options._ You’ve been doing some thinking yourself, and have some other ideas. _It might be more cramped, but buying an RV would be a lot cheaper, and a lot more mobile than buying a house._ You make a sour expression. _We’d have to keep it cleaner than Frank’s though, I still get nightmares about the smell in there.  
  
It’d be a bit of a tougher sell, but we could try to use the junkyard._ You’re already prepared to spend quite a bit of money on a house, so why not see if you can get something more modest built in a place that you’re more familiar with? _This might just be a pipe dream though… I really, really doubt the junkyard is zoned for residential use, and unless I can find some_ truly _shady construction workers to build it…_ That idea might be more trouble than it’s worth.  
  
You’re hesitant to even think about the last idea, but you can’t deny it’s potential payoff. _Jefferson is definitely out of commission for right now… what if we took over the Dark Room?_ It’s on the smaller and serial-killery side, sure, but it’s secure. As long as you took precautions to make sure there’s no way the Prescotts are actively monitoring it, it might be the most secure place in Arcadia Bay. _It definitely has sensors and stuff, so they might know we’re there at first, but I doubt they’d expect us to move in._ Your biggest holdup, obviously, is the memories associated there. Maybe with a fresh coat of paint and some warmer lighting it won’t be as bad. You still shudder at the thought of going back. _Hm, I’d have to take care of the red binders beforehand too, maybe there’s some insight into what’s happened with Rachel there._  


≅≅≅  
 _Current Point: October 11th, 2013. 3:21PM._


	24. 3.04

You see Chloe and Kate look at each other nervously in your peripheral vision. Their concern... might be warranted. _The Dark Room..._ Silence has settled over Chloe's living room in the minute since the two of them asked you which house you preferred. _Is it really worth it?_ Normally tough decisions like this come easily to you, even if all options are roughly equal, you can just _pick_. This time though? The choice that your rational mind is telling you to go with is the one _every_ other part of you is _screaming_ at you not to pick.  
  
Without Jefferson, what is the Dark Room? _A place where teenagers were tortured and killed._ No, abstract it further. _A place of suffering._ Further. _A place._ Maybe. And a place can be reclaimed. It can be controlled, tamed, transformed. A place can have it's malice extracted, the painful, _torturous_ memories rubbed out and replaced with new ones. A place does not have an inherent power to it, any meaning it has was prescribed by humans, and that meaning can be stripped away with work _by_ humans.  
  
It's... not much to go on, emotionally. Hopefully it's enough to get you through the vault door. You're worried that when you do enter, the mental gymnastics you just went through might just collapse, but... _No. No, I'm strong, and I have to be strong for Chloe. She's safe for now, from the storm, but I can't shake the feeling we're all in more danger than ever._  
  
Will the Dark Room alleviate that danger? It might make it easier to deal with. You'll probably be able to sleep, and not worry about waking up to cold blue eyes under a ski mask and the cool bite of a knife under your throat. But... it's the Dark Room.  
  
You shake your head. It doesn't have to be the Dark Room forever.  
  
Another thought occurs to you then, as Kate and Chloe watch you. You're not the only one who has reason- or would have reason to abhor the Dark Room. Kate was, in another life, one of Jefferson's victims, in a vacuum she'd have no way of finding out, but there's another factor at play. Chloe. She figured out _fast_ from your reactions that Jefferson was bad news. Her only mistake was underestimating to just what degree he was 'perving on students.'   
  
You've been dancing around the question with half-truths and omissions, but now you need to ask yourself. _Should I tell Chloe and Kate what happened in the Dark Room?_  
  
You owe it to them, don't you? You're taking them into the torture-den of a deranged serial killer, who you've seen _kill_ or injure both of them before. Chloe might take it at face value at first, but if she thinks you're hiding something about the place's true nature, she won't be able to stop herself from decoding it's purpose. You don't doubt she'd be able to figure it out, and it's connection to Rachel, in time. _That's assuming Rachel even went to the Dark Room here... I didn't find her corpse in the graveyard, but there's also no Nathan at Blackwell to OD her. Yet she still went missing in the same timeframe as I remember..._  
  
You suppose you'll find out once you crack open that fault door. _534\. At the same time though... knowing what happened isn't necessary... if Chloe has suspicions I... could put her off track. But that all depends on_ me _being able to keep myself together 24/7 in there as well._ Why should Kate be told of the fate another her befell there? The knowledge and memories of it already haunt one mind, why inflict it on her too?  
  
Regardless, though, you should probably deal with those red binders before the other two see them. _Even if I tell them, there's no reason to make them see those other poor girl's shots... or Rachel's, if hers are in there._  
  
Hesitantly, you finally break the silence. "There's... another place." You suppress a shiver. "Another place that... that might work."  
  
Kate's eyebrows shoot up. "Your tone of voice isn't inspiring too much confidence, Max."  
  
"What's the place?" Chloe asks.  
  
What will it be, Max?


	25. 3.05

“There’s something I need to tell you.”  
  
It is a conversation you’ve been dreading. In other loops it had been marginally easier, since taking revenge on Jefferson was… easy there. Easy to the point of muscle memory, eventually. But here, as you were told by… yourself, apparently, things _are_ different.  
  
“It has to do with… with all three of us. All three of us and- and Rachel.” You cast your eyes downward as Chloe is suddenly rigid with alarm. You try to suppress the bubble of guilt that threatens to burst in your stomach.  
  
How long has it been since you told the story? Normally you would have _had_ to by now but… the Storm never came. You have to assume this world, and the state it’s in are going to _stick_ and continue beyond tonight. _If this is going to be the world I live in- and I really hope it is- I want it to be one where I’m honest._  
  
“The… place I was thinking might be a good base has a- we all have a… history, sort of, with it.” The two of them look at you oddly. “Uh, like a history that I experienced, a really, really, really, _really_ awful one.”  
  
Next to you, the expression on Chloe’s face is a mix of trepidation, probably for what you’ll reveal, and concern, for the distress you’re in. You _do_ feel awful, in a way that’s like a panic attack, but more… even. More spread out, maybe. During a panic attack you feel like that Lord of the Rings quote, ‘Too little butter spread over too much toast,’ but now all you feel is a deep seated dread, like a physical ball of lead pressing down on your gut. On the other side of Chloe, Kate’s eyes are sympathetic, you figure she can probably sense-ish the emotions you’re feeling, however that works exactly with ambient fae. _I wonder what she sees from Jefferson in class?_  
  
You steady yourself, forcing your white knuckle grips on the couch armrest and cushion to relax. “So… Mark Jefferson, world famous photographer, teacher at Blackwell and… apparently secret enforcer agent for the Prescotts, or something?” They nod. “Well… he has another hobby.”  
  
You turn your mind away from his face and his voice, even as they try to worm their way in. Think about it in the most objective terms, then speak it. “He-” Your voice hitches immediately. _So much for that_. You’d beaten him so many times, revealed his guilt to Arcadia Bay and gotten him _vilified_ for it. Jefferson is a _known variable_ , and you saw last night that even with the changes to this timeline, he is _still_ Jefferson, in all of the worst ways possible.  
  
So why are you still so _scared_ of him? Why could he still turn your stomach and so _deeply_ disturb you? Why does he still have _power_ over you like that?  
  
You’re shaking, you realize, and you’ve folded in on yourself, elbows pressing into your stomach and hands clenched together in your lap, inadvertently mimicking a curled in version of the way Jefferson liked to pose his victims. _I have to sit up, I have to keep talking_. You nod mentally and try to do it, but it feels like you’re seeing and feeling the world through a haze of television static. It feels almost like there’s a distinct separation between your mind and body, like you’re observing yourself from a distance. The static grows thicker as you try to unclench your hands. You feel a dull pain on the edge of your awareness, concentrated in your clasped fists, but it still feels like it’s a million miles away. You feel completely disconnected, for a moment, you wonder what you’re looking at. But it’s like the input and stimuli your eyes are receiving is getting garbled on the way to your brain. The images you see _should_ make sense but everything is foreign and utterly alien, except for the encroaching foggy noise that subsumes your vision.  
  
Just as the static noise and fuzz are threatening to boil over and drag you with them into what you hope is dreamless unconsciousness, a sudden _warmth_ makes your mind re-register the presence of your body. You can feel yourself breathing again, quiet, sharp, short gasps of air. A second later the warmth that brought you back is joined by a soft _pressure_ , a possessive embrace that anchors you around your shoulders and stops your head from feeling like you’re on a swaying ship. You can hear again, too. Chloe’s voice. Mixing with the sudden, harsh sobs that wrack your whole body which you can _feel_ again. Your throat is burning and your eyes sting. The muscles in your body hold tense for another moment after you become aware of them, and then they all loose at once, tired muscles aching, finally freed from the terror-induced contraction they’d been held in.  
  
You collapse into Chloe, who’s been holding you for… some amount of time, you’re not sure how long you were out. You dimly hear her and Kate muttering to one another. What little attention you can give is suddenly drawn to the small, sharp pains in your palms. “Ow…” you mutter, your voice weak and reedy. You think your nails might have drawn blood in your hand. As it stands though your back feels like paper and any attempt to pull yourself away seems doomed to fail. So you lay there a while, and cry into Chloe’s lap while she calmly strokes your hair.  


≅≅≅

  
You stay like that a while, before you struggle into an upright position at Chloe’s gentle urging. You choke and stand, still holding back sobs as you try and try and _try_ not to imagine and remember what it felt like to be in the Dark Room, to be drugged to the point on the edge of unconsciousness by Jefferson, to be leered at and forcibly _captured_ , in the most visceral and literal way by his camera and-  
  
Even as you feel that static coming again and feel yourself spiralling once more into dissociative panic, that warmth returns. You realise dimly that it’s _not_ Chloe, Chloe has her arm around your waist and holds your left arm around her shoulder, gently guiding you up the stairs. But the warmth has a direction nonetheless. It’s coming from behind you, and as soon as you become aware that the warmth isn’t an internal thing and it’s not from Chloe, it’s like a veil is lifted and suddenly the warmth has a _colour._ Green, a warm forest green. Radiating, almost, through the static from some point behind you. The green’s warmth feels calm, and steadfast, and… curious? Between the green warmth and the arm around your waist and the hand holding yours you’re able to be more helpful struggling up the stairs.  
  
Finally, you’re back in Chloe’s bed, upright, but with the comforter pulled over your lap. You do feel a bit better now, mostly because you aren’t thinking about what you were going to talk about. You’re focusing on getting your breathing back under control, while Chloe presses bandaids over the couple places your nails broke the skin, and Kate takes a clipper to them.  
  
The image of the two of them taking care of you like this makes you feel a little guilty, even as you try to suppress it. Impulsively, you try to joke about it, “Very good, my servants,” but your voice comes out quiet, closer to a mumble.   
  
Kate hears though, and chuckles softly. “How’s it going Max?”  
  
You sigh, and wince as your throat tightens. “I-I’m okay… sorry for- that you guys have to do this…” Your voice trails off as you mumble the apology.  
  
Kate’s quiet for a terrifying moment, before she suddenly leans down into the field of view of your downcast eyes. She’s smiling at you. “Max, you absolutely never, ever have to apologize for a panic attack. Okay? Not to me, and not to Chloe. Right?”   
  
Chloe jumps at the sudden query directed at her. “Oh! Uh. Yeah. Ya for sure, right.”  
  
“Right,” Kate says, then looks at you, “Okay?”  
  
You sniffle, guilt still spooled in your chest, but maybe a little lighter now. “Okay.”  
  
A few quiet moments later, Kate starts to speak again. “Okay, so… Max. Did you… notice anything, when you were, um, having a bad time, a second ago? Anything that… helped pull you out of it?”  
  
You’d guessed already, but it seems like she wasn’t sure if she had been helping with the green warmth thingy. “Ya, was that you? The green sort of… warmth?”  
  
Kate’s eyebrows shoot up. “Green? You could see it?” You nod. “Huh.” Kate mumbles.  
  
She’s quiet for a moment. Chloe’s watching the two of you, confused. “Uh,” you start, “it did help, a lot I think, between you doing that and Chloe it helped… recenter me, kind of.”  
  
“You could see it though? How?” Kate seems focused on this.  
  
You try to think of how to describe it. “It was kinda like… when I started, uh, dissociating and kinda going unconscious, everything got kinda… staticy? Like a television. The green was colouring that and-” As you say the words describing what you saw, the reality of it hits you like a wave. “Hold on, was I seeing the, uh, 'ambient Fae'?”  
  
Kate shrugs. “It… sounds like it, yes. But… hm.”  
  
“What’s up?”  
  
“N-Nothing, I just… more stuff to try and find in my books is all.” She smiles at you, brushing aside the question. You decide to let it go though, you’re in no emotional state for confrontation. “If you like, Max, I can… keep doing that for a bit? While you talk- if you still want to, that is.”  
  
You think about it for a moment. _It’s not like she’s… forcing her emotions on me. When she ‘colours’ the ambient fae it feels more like something… atmospheric. Warmth, yeah, but also just an ambient comfort, somehow. The same feeling as being inside and warm when you can hear rain on the roof._ You nod, “Yes please.”  
  
Even without the static, you can see it faintly. A subtle aura of warm green that suddenly suffuses the room. You look around in a level of wonderment, while Chloe follows your gaze in confusion. “It seriously blows being the only person without powers here dudes.”  
  
You reach over and pat her hand. “Don’t worry Chlo, we’ll figure out something cool for you.”  
  
She frowns a bit at your teasing tone, but nonetheless wriggles into her spot next to you, sitting up against the wall. “Alright Max, if Kate has her… green whatever up, can you tell us what you wanted to talk about now?”  
  
Your heart tries again to jump into your throat, but with Chloe next to you and Kate’s influence, you wrangle it down. You nod. “R-right.”  
  
Then, you tell them. You tell them about Jefferson, and his sick predilections for helplessness in his subjects. The way he preyed on you and Kate, and before that however many more girls and… Rachel Amber.  
  
Chloe’s expression crumpled when you told her about how you found Rachel the first time, what Nathan and Jefferson did to her. How for all those months, in the very place she and Rachel had considered their refuge, her body had been buried just barely surface deep. This time you held her as she was the one who cried, maybe she’d have been angry at you, if she hadn’t just seen how real all this was for you. But you didn’t want her to languish. You were quick to follow up and tell her the key differences this time that you’d realized. The first, and most important that Nathan wasn’t around, and ultimately, he _was_ the one who killed Rachel. This meant there was a chance, however slim, that Jefferson had done something else with her. The second of course being as a consequence, you hadn’t found her body at the junkyard. You hope Chloe doesn’t dwell on the fact that she’d originally been buried by Nathan in a terrified fit, and that Jefferson might just be more subtle.  
  
Kate’s face is impassive when you tell her about her alter-self’s fate. Jefferson’s manipulations of a girl who had been bullied and browbeaten into being unable to stand up for herself. A girl who was drugged at a party, who was made to feel _so ashamed_ of being a _victim_ that she tried to take her own life. Kate’s face is impassive, yes, but the green warmth becomes tinged with sparks of red, and a hot anger that burns through her starts to burn in you too. Your voice threatens to break again when you tell her about finding her binder in the Dark Room, when you had realized that she had been a victim of Jefferson’s who had survived.   
  
Finally, and most difficult for you, you tell them about your own time in the Dark Room. You tell Chloe how finding Rachel’s body had lead to her death, and to your own abduction. You avoid the logistical details, but describe the hellish journey you went through, from photograph to photograph, reality to reality, each terminating in the Dark Room. Each one a closed loop that sent you back to an awful, disturbing reality where your powers faltered and malfunctioned and where Jefferson stalked you endlessly. You cry, of course you do, several times. But it’s not the ugly, world-obliterating tears of your prior panicked experience. These are tears of… catharsis? Not quite. The things you experienced can’t be scrubbed out by just crying, but they are a step. Sharing this with them… part of you still feels the guilt. These timelines are dead, burdening Chloe and Kate with what _didn’t_ happen is only putting more weight onto their shoulders. But… not being the only one who knows. It somehow makes it feel a little more real. Which for once, isn’t a bad thing.   
  
To end the infodump, you tell them a bit more about how this went in the loops. Your first loop past the original five day stretch had resulted in your capture, again. This time it had been by a panicked Nathan as you confronted him about his involvement in the Dark Room. What had happened in there… had been mostly the same. Albeit with an increasingly manic Nathan clashing with Jefferson. But they had… fought, in the end. You watched Jefferson kill Nathan, again. But Jefferson came out with nasty wounds, courtesy of Nathan’s knife. Ultimately, you were rescued again, after several hours alone with their corpses, tied to a chair. Chloe and David burst into the Dark Room, and you were saved. Only to jump back again, of course, several hours later.  
  
The only other time you’d been involuntarily brought there had been in… yes, the tenth loop. Maybe you had gotten sloppy, maybe something new you’d tried had tipped him off. But Jefferson got wise to your meddling. After class on the third day he had asked to speak with you, keeping up the pretense of a good student, you’d obliged, only to feel the tight prick of a needle breaking your skin. How exactly he had smuggled your body out of the school, you have no idea, but when you awoke you were in the Dark Room, and a day early. At that point, you were so detached, you’d thought he wouldn’t be able to do anything to hurt you anymore. He’d been more than happy to prove you wrong. You shudder. You know _what_ happened, but trying to actually recall the memories felt like pushing against a wall made of playdough. Solid, sure, but pliant. You could scoop away at it, if you were so inclined. But something tells you you wouldn’t like what you found on the other side.  


≅≅≅

  
You, Chloe, and Kate sit silently on the bed. The wind outside hisses gently through the trees, and some quiet, [folk-ish sounding music](https://youtu.be/WHF80iDFvuI) makes a calm backdrop, courtesy of Kate’s iPod plugged into Chloe's boombox.  
  
“Do you think Rachel’s alive, Max?” You look at Chloe. Even as she asks the question, you don’t see that… _hope_ that had been in her eyes the first night. She’d been so excited for the possibility that you could… time travel and bring back Rachel to her. You don’t see that in her eyes anymore. Just… resignation.  
  
Do you think Rachel might have survived? Kate did in the original timeline, but Kate didn’t disappear for six months. Maybe Rachel could have run away from Jefferson? You can’t think of how, for all the same reasons the Dark Room appeals to you as a homebase.  
  
“I don’t know, Chloe.” She starts to shrink, but you sit up and put your hand on hers. “I don’t mean that like ‘no’ at all, Chloe, that isn’t me shielding your feelings or _anything_ like that. I really, truly don’t know.” You sigh, and lean back, Chloe’s eyes are still downcast. “But I’m going to hope Chlo. You don’t have to, but I will. I _want_ to find Rachel.” The blue haired girl nods slowly, looking tired, and more resigned than you’d ever seen her.  
  
“Right. Thanks Max.” You can almost hear her _forcing_ the emotion into her voice. It still comes out mostly flat. You don’t think you’ll be getting through to her tonight.  
  
Kate speaks then, “And… you want us to… _live_ in this place?  
  
A little more sure of yourself, you nod. “Kate, this might be our only window where it’s even _relatively_ safe to take over a place like this. Right now our biggest advantage is that they _don’t know we know it exists._ Imagine what we could do with an _underground bunker_ , especially if I use my powers to get us some money.”  
  
She hums hesitantly in agreement, “I suppose…”  
  
“Let’s do it,” Chloe interjects. You both look at her in surprise. A new fire is burning in her cobalt eyes. “An underground bunker is cool, sure, but I want to turn that place _against_ Jeffershit and the Prescotts. I can start doing some research, if we set up a _really good_ rig for me down there, maybe I can make myself more useful than sitting around needing Max to protect me and tell me where to shoot when a bad guy jumps in.”  
  
You nod. “That’s… basically what I was thinking. I don’t think it’ll be easy for me or anything… but I think we can make it into something… other than the Dark Room.”  
  
Kate still looks dubious, but you know at this point she won’t say no to Chloe if she’s convinced.  
  
“Wanna head out now?” Chloe asks.  
  
The question startles you a bit. For all the thinking and talking about it, you’re not sure your brain really _registered_ that you’re going back to the Dark Room. Faced with it so immediately, you’re scared, but you know you would be no matter how much time passed. You nod. “Let’s go.”


	26. 3.06

Chloe's truck rumbles quiet, silencing the radio's chattering about the unseasonal wildfires in southern Washington state. You all quietly unbuckle and step out. You stand outside of the Prescott barn, flanked to either side by Chloe and Kate. The drive here had only taken fifteen minutes, there wasn’t much traffic out of the Bay this time of day.  
  
“It’s under _there_?” Kate asks, breaking the silence.  
  
You nod at the dilapidated barn. “Yup, under a trapdoor.”   
  
Chloe snorts. “Real subtle and not-serial-killer-y. Really just an incredibly super normal thing for anyone to do, build a tiny bunker under a shitty barn and give your son and his photography teacher free reign down there. Jesus.”  
  
“Apparently Mr. Prescott is a piece of work…” You say, remembering Luke’s comments, all the way back in that first week. You’d barely given him a second thought then, why would Nathan’s dad be relevant to you? _I mean, I still don’t know it’s him specifically. Corporations and stuff can have different branches hiding things from each other…_  
  
“I guess he’d have to be, to be a CEO.” Kate says and rolls her eyes.   
  
You just shrug and start picking your way forward. The barn itself doesn’t hold any terror for you, your memories here are only of exploring with Chloe, and of escaping your ordeal inside. The path into the barn looks the same as you remember, junk and rotted wood strewn about, an old, rusted car to one side. _I wonder if we’ve already tripped some kind of sensor, or if they’re only past the trap door?_  
  
Chloe is uncharacteristically quiet as you enter the barn proper through the same, covered up gap in the wall you remember. Kate’s humming quietly though, and doing something else too. You can’t quite describe it as any sort of conscious thing, but now and again you’re able to discern those same colours radiating off of her. They’re less potent than in Chloe’s room, but you see the warm green, coloured more by flashes of red and purple underneath. It expands and contracts in waves around Kate in time with her humming. It’s faint, yes, but still visible. _Soooooo weird._  
  
You shake your head and focus on the barn. You’ve given consideration to the idea that Prescott might have someone guarding the Dark Room in Jefferson’s absence, since he seems to be taking a more… active role with Jefferson here.  
  
“Right, here it is.” The other two follow you to where hay and straw cover up the trapdoor. Some part of you had somehow hoped that the Dark Room just… wouldn’t be here when you showed up. That working with the Prescotts had somehow forced Jefferson to hold back on his fucked up hobbies. But that hope is crushed as you once more uncover the long, heavy metal trapdoor that hides the stairway down into the Dark Room.  
  
"It's locked." Kate frowns.  
  
Oh… right. "Crap," you say, "normally I bring a pair of bolt cutters for this…"  
  
Ugh. _Time to do it the old fashioned way, I guess._  
  
"One sec guys." You go through your motions with the old motor and the rope and hook. This was one of the times in that first week you'd felt _most_ like a superhero, until it was terrifyingly eclipsed almost instantly by the discovery that awaited you underneath.  
  
This time though… you can't help but show off a little as you go through the motions. To Chloe and Kate, your initial climb probably looks closer to something out of that Dishonored game. That's fully intentional. By making use of both rewind _and_ budget timestop, you're able to turn the motor into a floating, mid-air platform that you _launched_ yourself off of toward the top wooden platform. By quickly rewinding the motor back into place before you land and then dropping the rewind, you made it look as if you had teleported into the air, then pushed yourself off of _nothing_ to land (painfully hard) on that top platform.  
  
Chloe's "Ho-ly SHIT!!" in response makes your re-bruised knees more than worth it though. You tie the motor to the rope and give it a shove, quickly pulling the world back into budget timestop so you can clamber down and watch the spectacle from the ground.  
  
Spectacle is maybe too strong a word for it, but the lock makes a satisfying sound as the hook suddenly pulls taut and _shatters_ the mechanisms inside. Chloe jumps as you appear beside her, casually leaning on a wooden column.  
  
“Nice.” You say, smirking at the two of them.  
  
“ _That was so badass…_ ” Kate whispers as Chloe cheers. _It feels good to be appreciated_.   
  
“Alright, can you two lift this? It’s heavy and I’m not quite… ready for that kind of lifting.”  
  
They nod and kneel down on either end of the long trapdoor.  
  
"Ready?"   
  
"Sure."  
  
With a heave, they pry it open, and that bare concrete staircase confronts you once more. _Here we go._  
  
You walk down the steps, shivering as the cooler underground air hits you. The vault door looms a bit further down.  
  
"This is some seriously dystopian shit," Chloe says behind you.  
  
"Tell me about it," you reply.  
  
The vault door looks the same as you remember. The keypad, too. Five, three, and four, faded away from use.  
  
Kate and Chloe are quiet as you key in the numbers. Everything is silent for a moment, before a _CLUNK-CLUNK-CLUNK-CLANK_ shatters the stillness.   
  
You look back at your friends. Chloe's eyes are narrowed, but she gives you a tight smile while she reaches back to hold the gun tucked into the waist of her jeans. Kate doesn't know what to do with her hands, having turned down the gun that David (hesitantly) offered her. Her eyes, and moreover that energy she's incidentally pulsing out, have a cast of… curiosity over them. She gives you a quick nod, and you set your jaw and offer what you hope is a reassuring smile to both of them. "Let's go."  
  
You have to put your whole body into it to even start to open the door. Despite it's weight it's silent until it reaches the end of where it's hinges can carry it with a _THUMP._ With a rush of just too warm stale air, the Dark Room lies open.   
  
You enter cautiously, flanked by the others. The entry storage room looks much as you remember it, but you're not so much _looking_ at it as you are _scanning_ it, searching for any sign of movement. Nothing. You let out a short breath and look at the room properly as Kate and Chloe slowly fan, keeping well clear of the plastic flaps that lead to the Dark Room proper. Shelves and shelves of non-perishable supplies, whether for _the_ _Storm_ or some other disaster, you're not sure. At the far end of the room, the same bare metal utility sink as you remember.  
  
Satisfied that this room is clear, you keep from dwelling on any memories by creeping further forward, towards the plastic flaps. Kate and Chloe stop their examinations of the storage room and tiptoe to follow close behind you.  
  
Staring intently through the plastic flaps, you can't see much from your current angle. So you breath, gather the threads into your hand for safety, and quickly turn the corner to enter the Dark Room.  
  
No one. The same Dark Room you remember. Disgusting posters adorn the wall, everything black or white or some shade of grey. Stark fluorescent lighting flickering rapidly. Camera setup in front of the couch, Jefferson's desk and computer in the corner across from you.  
  
After all of the panic attacks and tears and nightmares, returning to the Dark Room is almost… underwhelming. You'd expected to have another panic attack, or to collapse, or start bawling and demanding to leave, but instead… just a quiet sadness fills you. For the other victims in this world, the ones you can't save. Maybe you're too emotionally drained right now. Maybe the Dark Room will come back to haunt you in it's worst shape tonight as you try to sleep. Or maybe… maybe you can handle it. With Kate and Chloe. They know everything now, and they're your… friends. With their help… maybe getting through this and making it your _own_ will be easier.   
  
**Negative Trait 'Bad Memories' severity lessened due to honesty.**  


≅≅≅

  
Almost immediately, you and Chloe meet at the cabinets, while Kate wanders off to the far end of the room.  
  
"Shit." There's _another_ padlock on the cabinet that contains the red binders. "This wasn't here before."  
  
Chloe raises an eyebrow. "No more superhero tricks for this one?"  
  
You stick your tongue out, forcing levity. "Not this time, punk."  
  
Chloe sighs. "Rachel knew how to pick locks, I should've gotten her to show me."  
  
_Oh Chloe…_ You smile at her. "A woman of many talents?"  
  
"Ha! You have _no_ idea, once she decided to learn how to do something, it felt like by the next _day_ she'd already be halfway to average at it. Painting, jewelry making, graphic design, you name it." Struck by a thought, Chloe frowns, then says, "Awful driver though, no idea why she couldn't figure that out."  
  
You smile and note that you… _don't_ feel the usual twang of jealousy in your chest. _That's… good. Chloe and Rachel were really important to one another… I shouldn't devalue the importance of that to Chloe._  
  
Either way though, you've gotta get this cabinet open. Maybe Jefferson left some tools lying aro-  
  
"Hey Max?" Kate's voice snaps you out of your train of thought.  
  
"Ya?" You say, turning.  
  
Kate's standing next to the enormous white wall-to-floor tarp that Jefferson used to frame his subjects on. Seeing her on it sends a trill of panic down your spine, but you manage to shake yourself out of it. _Kate's fine._  
  
"Didn't you say this place was small?"   
  
You nod, "Uh, yeah. Just these two rooms, it's not a big bunker at all."  
  
"Then what's _this?_ " She turns around and grabs the tarp, then in a single motion, pulls it free from the tape that had held it onto the wall. What you had thought through fourteen separate loops was just a standard photography screen falls to the ground in a heap. Behind it, another heavy vault door interrupts what you had always assumed was another bare concrete wall. _Has this… always been here? Or is it new?_   
  
You walk towards it slowly. "I… haven't seen this before."   
  
Kate nods. "I get why, not a place you'd expect to look. We should probably check it out before we look for the binders."  
  
Chloe looks hesitantly upwards, but nods a moment later. "Maybe they stuffed the key for this through there."  
  
"Right. Lemme just do another safety selfie." You lift up William's camera.  
  
"For good luck, right?" Chloe quips.  
  
"Pft, if _this_ is good luck, then I'm glad I don't have bad luck." You reply.  
  
_Click._  


≅≅≅

  
You sigh. "I can't do one of these that needs to be pulled, help me?"  
  
The other two girls quickly apologize and join you gripping the handle. There was no keypad on this door, just a locking mechanism that was, thankfully, unlocked. You pull it open, part of you dreading what's on the other side, the other part of you burning with curiosity-  
  
And you find _another_ vault door.  
  
" _Seriously!?"_ Chloe exclaims. You shrug and step into the small chamber adjoining the two doors, when you notice the blueprint on the wall.  
  
"Hey, check this out." The other two crowd around you. "If this is right… this bunker is much, much bigger than I thought it was…" You have Chloe take a picture of the [two](https://i.imgur.com/TRESp1i.png) [blueprints](https://i.imgur.com/LoG1xFi.png) with her phone.  
  
**Hidden Positive Trait 'Expansive' revealed.**  


≅≅≅

  
"Look," Chloe says, "All of those private bedrooms, _and_ a communal quarters? That's fancy architect-speak for _barracks_. You could house a small _army_ down there."  
  
You nod, a sudden worry in your gut. "What if… they _are_ down there? This place is huge…"  
  
"We'll just have to scout it out." Chloe says firmly. "If things go up in shit creek, we have your photo for insurance."   
  
You ignore her mixed metaphors and nod slowly. "Right…"  
  
This is a push door, so once again you press your body weight against it. It silently slides open, revealing… just what the floor plan had shown. A room that looks ready to be a dining room/kitchen when furnished properly. Black granite counters jut blockily from the ground on one side of the room, wrapping around so the 'kitchen area' has counters along the wall, and a bar area in front. The walls are still bare concrete, but the floor is primarily plain white tile, except for the kitchen area enclosed by the granite counters, where it is changed to black tile.   
  
"They sure had a… specific colour philosophy, huh?" Chloe mutters.  
  
"It feels so sterile…" Kate says quietly.  
  
You walk to the granite counters and wipe one finger along it. _Just like I thought._ You breathe a sigh of relief. "Dusty." You announce. "They haven't been using this place."  
  
Exploring the rest of the bunker goes much the same. The utility closet is the most interesting, featuring the machinery that heats and, apparently, purifies the water as well as the air. It also has a touchpad computer of some kind built into the wall, which Chloe looks _sorely_ tempted to start monkeying with immediately, before you pull her away to explore the rest of the floor. Most of the rooms are bare and empty, the only difference being the flooring. The rec room has a soft light gray carpet, while the offices and conference room have laminated hardwood floors of either white or black. Notably, the conference room _does_ have a huge badass mahogany conference table, but no chairs.  
  
Downstairs, things are largely similar. The landing at the bottom of the stairs has an empty water cooler in it. _I wonder if the water evaporated… can water evaporate eventually underground?_ Chloe would know.  
  
The floor here is bare concrete, sleek and polished at this part of the bunker, the walls too. The guest and master bedrooms all share the grey carpeting of the upstairs rec room, but their walls are different than anywhere else in the bunker. Instead of poured concrete, they look as though they're hewn from the bare rock that had to have been otherwise chipped away and cleared. It's probably all been sanded down a bit, but it actually gives the rooms a somewhat natural aesthetic.  
  
"This is… kind of badass actually." Chloe remarks, and both you and Kate signal your agreement.  
  
The final part of the bunker lies, once again, behind heavy metal vault doors. "Okay, you two are opening this one."  
  
They giggle and comply, pushing it open _much_ more easily together than you had done the others alone. The concrete down this hallway looks more unfinished. Still smooth, of course, but lacking the glossy finish down the other bedroom hallway.   
  
"Wow," you hear Chloe say. You poke your head into the 'storage' room she had opened and leaned into.  
  
"Are those… gun racks?" You ask, feeling a little apprehensive.  
  
"I… think so." Chloe nods.  
  
They're empty, of course. But their presence at all raises a question to both your minds that Chloe airs. "Who would need this many guns near Arcadia Bay? For what?" You glance around the rest of the room. Cabinets with heavily reinforced glass, all empty, line one wall, while the other wall has a bay of freezers and fridges lined up.  
  
You shrug helplessly. "Let's check out the rest of this hallway."   
  
The two of you rejoin Kate in the 'communal quarters’, which as Chloe had predicted, are indeed a military style barracks. The quarters are also home to the most furniture you'd seen in the bunker so far. Four columns of neatly made bunk beds line the room around the sides, and bisect it down the middle. Kate demonstrates their disuse by thumping one of the mattresses, sending up a thick cloud of dust that has the three of you staggering back. At a loss, you all shrug or shake your heads at each other and move on.  
  
The communal bathroom is as expected, drains in the floor and that same cool white tile as the other bathrooms. Chloe reaches over and tries one of the taps. After a violent sounding splutter and a burst of air, the tap suddenly starts spouting water obediently.  
  
"Huh." Chloe says.  
  
"We should prooobably run those a bit before we drink from them." Kate tentatively dips a finger under the stream. "Huh. Warm."  
  
After finishing in the communal washroom, you all make your way to the final vault door. "Another one, weird." Kate says.  
  
Chloe looks at it thoughtfully. "These are 'private' bedrooms, they're probably for company members a bit more important than the henchmen, but not quite Prescott level."  
  
Kate frowns, "The rooms looked pretty small though."  
  
"At least they'd be private."   
  
Kate shrugs, and since you're in the lead, you once again lean in to do the heavy pushing.  
  
This door swings open much more easily than the others though. Also unlike the others, it lets out a loud _CREEEEEAAAK_ as it opens, like the hinges are already straining. Immediately as you enter, you're hit by a significant, bright light difference, and a shuddering sense of _wrong._   
  
The concrete inside is yellowed, rough, and chipped in places, reminding you almost of badly maintained teeth. The fluorescent bulbs feel _brighter_ and harsher than the rest of the bunker, though you suppose that could be an illusion from it reflecting off of the brighter concrete.  
  
"What the hell?"  
  
"Oh my god…"  
  
Chloe and Kate's dual refrains mark your own realization of what you're looking at. The 'rec room' preceding the private bedrooms has a large grate drain in the center. On one wall are several hose lines with spray nozzles attached. That's it. That's the rec room. It gives you a sick feeling about what lies beyond the other doors. They aren't the vault doors from earlier, but they're still heavy, reinforced metal.  
  
Chloe purposefully strides over and throws one open with another scratchy _CREEEAK._ She blinks and stares for a moment as her face hardens, then turns and thunders back into the rec room, swearing and growling.  
  
Startled by her reaction, and dreading what’s through the door, you look over at Kate, meet her eyes, and step forward together.  
  
“ _Oh…_ ” Kate gasps, stepping back. Rows of… cells look back at you. You can see the edge of a toilet peaking out of the back from the one you have the most view into. No lights in the cells proper, but double rows of those bright, harsh fluorescents cast shadows into each one.  
  
“Private rooms my _ass-_ ” Chloe shouts behind you, “they have a fucking _prison_ down here!”  
  
Kate’s stepped away away from the door, back into the rec room, but you’re transfixed. _Why… what were they planning to even use this for? Fifteen separate cells… just, why?_ You’re watching the darkness in one of the cells, with the flickering of the fluorescent bulbs, it almost looks like it’s bubbling, moving. You blink a few times, and the effect disappears. Huh.  
  
Feeling more than a little disturbed, you step back and close the door gingerly, but slowing the close only draws out the _creeeeeeeeeeeeak_ even longer.  
  
“Let’s… go back upstairs.” You say.  
  
**Hidden Negative Trait ‘Something in the Shadows’ Revealed**  


≅≅≅

  
The three of you sit on the carpeted rec room floor upstairs, unwilling to re-enter the part of the bunker you still considered the ‘Dark Room’ proper, even with no proper furniture down here. Chloe had spent some time fiddling with the console in the utility room. It was totally unsecured, it turned out, and it held the controls for just about every function of the bunker. _Sloppy, but I guess most people don’t expect their secret bunkers to get… stolen._ The primary things Chloe had done was sever the bunker’s internet connection, hopefully nullifying any outgoing alarms in the process, and change the code on the door to a much more secure six digit code. _Seriously, who uses a three digit pin for their freaking bunker?_  
  
“So… we have a bunker, folks.” Chloe says with a grin. Even after the discovery downstairs, your moods are… surprisingly light. The excitement in your gut is familiar, the same as discovering a comfortable stretch of forest in the woods as kids with Chloe, the infinite possibilities of what you could create there. Same here. So many rooms, and so secure, what _can’t_ you do from this place? “But what now?” Chloe continues.  
  
“Well since we didn’t find a key, we should probably buy some bolt cutters to get to those binders.” You say.   
  
Chloe nods. “Right, we’ll do that when we come back. I’ll also try to do something with Jefferson’s computer, now that it’s disconnected.”  
  
Kate lays on her back on the carpet. “We need some money to fill this place up if we want to _live_ here.” She idly pulls out her phone. “Huh, at least we get service down here.” You remember your phone buzzing while Jefferson taunted you. You sure do get service down here.  
  
“Money is gonna be interesting… but I have some ideas, and I’d love to hear what ones you guys have too.” You think for a second, then continue. “I think since we’re just getting, like, basic furniture right now, maybe just raiding an ATM will do? With rewind I can basically clear one out, since the money I take out won’t rewind once I have it on me. I used to say ‘Don’t go to the dark side, Max,’ but it feels kinda like we _are_ fighting the dark side now.”  
  
Chloe laughs. “Well, the rebels weren’t called ‘rebels’ because they respected the law.”  
  
“Huh,” you say, “good point.”  
  
Kate interrupts, “What about horse races? Other gambling might be a bit risky, but horse races are big payouts, and fairly predictable. It might be too long for a rewind, but you could, uh, hard photojump back?” She looks at you to check if she’s using the terminology correctly. You nod.  
  
“That could be good, actually.”  
  
Chloe interjects, “Winning too much or too often could draw some attention though, Max doesn’t really look like the gambling type.”  
  
Kate grins at the blue haired punk. “But you know who does, cutie? Who says Max has to be the person doing it?”  
  
Chloe’s face blanches. “Oh shit, true.”  
  
You giggle, “Okay, it’s an idea, we’ll think about it.”  
  
“How about _instead_ of using me for my good looks,” Chloe makes a face at Kate while she says that, “you spend some time learning about the stock market?”   
  
_You_ make a face at the thought. “ _Math…”_  
  
“I- What? Ugh. Yes Max, _math_ , how horrifying.” Chloe pouts. “But think of the long term income! We could be millionaires Max, _millionaires!_ ”  
  
Kate’s frowning though. “Just like the people we’re up against?”  
  
Chloe snorts, “No, no, of course not. They’re _billionaires._ ”  
  
“Either way,” Kate shakes her head, “Money’s a tool, but hoarding it like that, just to _have_ when we don’t even have to pay rent or taxes right now doesn’t seem right.”  
  
Chloe just shrugs. “We’re a long way from even our first thousand right now, sitting here. Why not try it? We can just reevaluate once we’re a bit further in, right?”  
  
“I guess…”  
  


≅≅≅

  
You’re all sitting on the huge mahogany conference table now. It’s not exactly _comfortable_ , but something about the irreverence you’re showing for the Serious Business Table™ feels extremely Good and Correct.  
  
“So money aside, what else are we looking to do?” Chloe asks.  
  
You frown. “Well… I wanna know _why_ Prescott tried to… kill you and capture me. How does he even know I’m here?”  
  
Chloe nods. “Right, but _how_ do we do that?”  
  
You sigh and flop back onto the table. It’s seriously big enough for all of you to lie sprawled out on with _plenty_ of room still.   
  
Kate sits up as you lie down though. Chloe snickers at the somewhat silly sight. Kate shoots her a glare. “How about this? Let’s spend tonight when we get back going over everything that’s happened, and try to come up with some leads to follow.”  
  
Chloe puts on an overly dramatic frown. “Leads? I thought you were _Merlin_ , not Sherlock _Holmes._ ”  
  
Kate splutters, “I- Wha- _Merlin!?_ Seriously? How am I _Merlin_?”  
  
“You’re like, magic and shit.” Chloe grins, clearly happy to have gotten to Kate.  
  
Kate looks at you pleadingly, but you just grin as well. “You _are_ magic and shit, Kate.”  
  
“Come _ooooon._ ”  
  
You put your hand to your chin. “Hmm, maybe Morgan le-” You pause as you remember the rest of the character’s name, then giggle. “Hehe, Morgan le Fay is more fitting.”  
  
Kate pauses, and then whips her head to you, excitement bubbling in her eyes. “Ouh!! I’ve got a bunch of manuscripts from different witches debating whether she was real or not! Some say she was actually the _founder_ of Verdant Magic, but I don’t know about that, a lot of the scripts make _really_ convincing arguments that humanity’s been doing Verdant Magic, even in little ways, for as long as we’ve been around which makes _sense_ but-” Chloe coughs lightly, interrupting her blonde friend.  
  
Kate pauses and blushes. _Oh that’s adorable._ “Maybe we can talk about it… later, Kate?” You suggest gently.  
  
She smiles brightly, and on the edge of your awareness a pulsing, sun-dappled green indicates her happiness. _Interesting._ “Sounds good, Max.”  
  
“Right, so ideas board for what leads to track down, got it. Anything else?” Chloe asks.  
  
You frown. “There’s probably some other… miscellaneous, or social, even, stuff we should get up to.” In particular, Frank is on your mind. You’ll probably have to grab some money before you deal with him though. “Maybe we should talk about some of those?”  
  
“Right.” Chloe says, and scribbles something into the notebook that she’d apparently just pulled out of her back pocket. _A gun, a notebook, what else you packing back there girl?_ “So, we reconvene at home in a couple hours, after supper?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Sounds good.”  
  
“Cool.” Chloe says. “Let’s ditch this popsicle joint.”  


≅≅≅


	27. 3.07

You go to sleep on October 11th at an early 10PM, full of a sheperd’s pie that Joyce had cooked, and content to sleep in between Chloe and Kate, the warmth of their proximity turning your space in the large bed into a warm cocoon.  
  
Dreams that night are soft and fleeting, half remembered moments of comfort, fragments of kind sentences and loving words. It’s with a deep feeling of contentment that you awaken at 6am, far earlier than you normally would. Chloe and Kate are still sound asleep to either side of you, Kate’s rhythmic breathing and Chloe’s gentle snores nearly lull you back to sleep, but the significance of the morning isn’t lost on you.  
  
You slowly worm your way out of the mouth of the blankets that you were tucked into, trying not to pull too hard lest you disturb your sleeping friends. With careful consideration, you’re able to free yourself from the blanket, and without hesitation start crawling on it over your former sleeping spot and- _oops!-_ you immediately pull it out from under Chloe _and_ Kate, since it was pulled taut.  
  
Thinking fast, you crawl forward and off the bed, and with only half a thought send the world cascading backwards in sepia tones a handful of seconds, to before you had begun your wriggling. _There, sleep soundly, little birds._ You suppress a giggle. _Right, something warm first._ You quickly scope out a Christmas sweater that you’re pretty sure used to belong to Will. It certainly feels like his fashion sense _. Which is to say, it’s ugly._ You smile fondly at it, it’s definitely warm, at least. _Chloe won’t mind if I borrow it._ You throw it on over your- _Rachel’s_ \- t-shirt.  
  
After a moment of time-assisted quiet clearing of her desk, you’ve opened Chloe’s bedroom window and clambered outside. You don’t rewind it shut this time. _I could probably open it again, I did on the first night here, but…_ You shrug to yourself. Maybe you’re hoping one of them will join you.  
  
You turn your attention dubiously to the shingles that lead up to the flat roof over Chloe’s desk area. _Dew… they’re probably slippery._ Oh well, no point in having time powers if you don’t use them for convenience now and again. Barely expending any effort yet again, you sever your connection to all but one thread, and tug on it, pulling the world into the silence of a budget timestop.  
  
Idly as you climb up, you wonder why the properties of the world in budget timestop- _I’ve got to think of a more elegant name-_ and rewind are so different. In rewind, climbing this incline would be near impossible, the water wouldn’t react to you, but the surfaces of the water _and_ the shingles would have a lot less grip to them. Not so much that you’d slide off, but gaining enough purchase to progress would be near impossible. Is it because everything is still in motion in a rewind, in a sense? Albeit going the wrong way? It’s possible, but no more so than any other theory you’ve had, since it still doesn’t actually… explain anything.  
  
You’ve long since sat down on the flat section of roof, and are comfortably sprawled out, watching the early morning sky. Invariably, your thoughts turn to where, and _when_ you are now. Two months. Two months in the loops, two months spent hurting others for a chance to save them, for an undefined objective that you couldn’t quantify even at the beginning. When were you planning on stopping? When you could get Chloe out of the Bay safely? But what about Joyce, and Warren, and jeez, even Victoria or Frank? Were you going to stop when you’d evacuated the town? But what about the Two Whales, Joyce’s livelihood? What about the junkyard and Blackwell and all the students there’s futures? Were you _ever_ going to stop, if whatever had sent you here hadn’t done so?  
  
The thought scares you. It’s like something out of an Isaac Asimov story, or a Twilight Zone episode. An immortal god, reliving the same week over and over again, encyclopedic knowledge of everyone’s actions and reactions to any event, reaching for some unattainable goal, some ‘perfect future’ that couldn’t be brought about. Oof… there’s a double whammy. Not only did you just call yourself ‘an immortal god,’ an idea which makes you snort, but… you realized something else. _A perfect future… I don’t think I can bring it about. Even with all the time powers in the world._ Admittedly, you assume you _do_ have all the time powers in the world. _Can something like perfection ever be attained?_ You think on it for a few minutes. _I think Jefferson thought so, I think maybe he… found it, or forced it in his victim’s eyes, for himself._ You shake your head. There’s no need to turn to thoughts of Jefferson this early. _That’s enough reason for me to think that maaaybe chasing after perfection isn’t the healthiest pastime._  
  
So what are you doing here? If you’re not trying to make things perfect, what _are_ you trying to do? You sigh. _Do I want happiness? I’m already… happy with Chloe. Kate’s been nice enough recently too… but is Chloe happy with me? I just appeared at her window and all of a sudden she’s totally swept up in this crazy conspiracy stuff with the Prescotts. If she’s… not going to die from the storm, and not going to die in that bathroom, do I really have the right to force this on her?_ The thought twists a knife in your belly. You’re so caught up in thinking about it, tormenting yourself on the morality, that Chloe’s whisper-shouted “Boo!” takes you completely by surprise.  
  
“Eep!” You yelp and nearly launch yourself off of the roof with how hard you jump. “Chloe!!”  
  
“Sorry, sorry!” Chloe laughs as she finishes clambering up the flat roof section. “Good job not taking a long walk off a short roof.”  
  
You pout, “No thanks to you.”  
  
“You know you love me,” the blue haired girl grins.  
  
You abruptly turn away from her and look toward the horizon. _There’s… that, too._ Next to you, Chloe sighs.  
  
“Y’know, someone sleeping _right_ next to you suddenly disappearing isn’t _quite_ as subtle as you think it is.”  
  
Ah, fair. You scratch your head sheepishly. “Sorry, it’s a… big morning for me.”  
  
Chloe nods, “I know.”  
  
The two of you sit in silence for a few minutes. Is there a bit of awkwardness? A slight tension in the air? Sure. But more than that, it's comfortable. You’re both wearing warm clothing, you’re sitting next to each other - _a little closer even, than perhaps is strictly necessary-_ and you both… well, _you_ certainly feel a strong sense of protectiveness and, yeah, _love_ , for the other girl. Trying to quantify what kind of love you feel is… messy. Even without the complications of having known versions of her for two you-months, and what she must feel about that.  
  
You’re still a teenage girl. You still… well. Until you had gotten your time powers you’d always… _assumed_ you were straight. That was _normal_ , wasn’t it? And Max Caulfield, you were as _normal_ as can be. It didn’t matter that when talking about attractive classmates or celebrities, you never had an answer, that none of the options appealed to you. It didn’t matter that when you watched movies where the characters moved you, you always imagined yourself as the dashing protagonist, coming to the gorgeous heroine’s rescue. And it _didn’t matter_ that all those jokes from relatives about you wanting to marry or date your male friends as a child never made sense to you until you met Chloe Elizabeth Price.  
  
Two pirates, a Captain and a First Mate, one tall and one small. Partners in crime, partners in time. Even if the powers don’t last forever, you will. _Will we?_  
  
“Max?” Chloe says hesitantly, like she’s worried she’ll interrupt whatever you’re thinking about.  
  
You welcome the interruption though, and let a small smile come to your face. “Yeah Chloe?”  
  
“This is gonna sound totally sappy and- and you _cannot_ tell Kate I came up here to say this- but… uh,” she flounders for a moment, and you turn so you can see her expression and her face is _right there._  
  
The two of you freeze and stare into each other’s wide eyes for a moment, lips slightly parted. All it would take is...  
  
You snap your head away to face forward and flush deeply, feeling more than seeing Chloe do the same next to you. You’re both silent for a few moments.  
  
Quietly, Chloe says, “I’m really glad you’re here, Max.”  
  
You blink in surprise. Then shake yourself. _She always had a talent for just… knowing when I was worried about something._ “I-I’m really glad I’m here too, Chloe. But most of _all_ I’m really glad _you’re_ here.”  
  
Chloe chuckles a little at that. “Max, I just- I know it hasn’t been really long, like five days is basically fucking nothing in the grand scheme of things-” _Ouch_ “-but I just…” She pauses like she’s gathering up her courage for a second before pressing on. “I really wasn’t doing great before you came, like. Really not great. I thought I could handle myself and Kate was _trying_ to help but I was being all kinds of self destructive and doing just _hella_ unsafe shit because I was feeling shitty about David and about owing money to Frank and I was so, _so_ worried about Rachel and it all just-” She chokes up, and her voice begins to crack. “It was all just so much Max.... I couldn’t deal with it. Not on my own.”  
  
You’re surprised by the outpouring of emotion. Chloe’s always been forward with you, to the point. But rarely about herself, or her own emotions. “I- I’m sorry Chloe, that sounds like it was awful.” She sniffles a bit as you flounder, now. “But… I’m here now, and Kate was here the whole time. You’re not alone while we’re here Chloe, we won’t let you be alone. _I_ won’t let you be alone anymore. It’ll be okay.”  
  
Not letting yourself think about self-consciousness, you scoot over the short distance remaining between you and Chloe and nestle into her. Her arm loops around you, almost gratefully, and you sigh in contentment at the contact. _She feels better when someone relies on her, even for something small like warmth_. You don’t even try to convince yourself that that’s your only motivation for cuddling into her though.  
  
“I… I think you’re right, Max.” Chloe says finally, wiping her eyes with her other sleeve. “I think now… things might be okay.” You hum in agreement and relax into her. “I’m not alone…” She repeats. In front of you, the sun begins it’s climb into the sky for October the 12th, 2013, for the first time in your life.  
  
And it’s a beautiful sunrise.  
  


≅≅≅  
_Current Point: October 12th, 2013. 7:35AM._

≅≅≅


	28. 3.08

_Ow_. Daytime has officially begun now, Chloe flinches as well as the morning light starts to reflect off of the neighbourhood.  
  
“Inside now?” She asks.  
  
“Yes please,” you yawn. _I wanted to see the sunrise, but… I’m still not a morning girl._ You look sidelong at Chloe as she carefully slide-steps down the shingles. _And neither is she._  
  
Following close behind, the two of you reenter through the window to a flat stare from Kate, who’s sitting upright in Chloe’s bed.  
  
You grimace and smile sheepishly, “Morning Kate.”  
  
“Morning.” She stares at you for a moment longer, then flicks a glance over to Chloe across the room with a look you can’t quite place behind her eyes. _Huff_. She looks down sighs quietly, you would’ve missed it if you weren’t watching her. “Try not to leave the window open next time. Breeze is cold in the mornings.”  
  
You shrug, still wondering what her glance at Chloe meant. “Sure thing.”  
  
“Awwh, did we disturb your beauty sleep?” Chloe taunts with a smirk, before leaning back over to continue digging through her closet.  
  
Kate perks up almost imperceptibly. “Well, one of us has to put in the work in this…” Another quick glance, this time at _you_. “... Trifecta.”  
  
Hm.  
  
With that, she swings herself to sit on the edge of the bed, and reaches under it, pulling out a small backpack. You awkwardly sit down in Chloe’s desk chair, trying not to be _too_ obvious in your curiosity as you watch her pull out a pair of translucent green pill bottles, and take a pill- _dry-_ from each of them.  
  
Chloe finally fishes out the outfit she’d apparently been looking for, and turns to see Kate starting to brush her hair with a brush procured from the same backpack.  
  
“Nonono, no. No.” The blue haired girl says authoritatively. “I am _not_ dealing with you shedding all over my bed _again_ , brush your lion’s mane in the bathroom.”  
  
Kate pouts, “But then I have to _staaaand_.”  
  
“Hey, if coma-girl here can do it, you can too.” Chloe says with a smarmy glance at you.  
  
“Coma-girl?” You protest weakly.  
  
“I mean you haven’t done much to _not_ look like you just rolled out of bed.”  
  
Ouch, you _are_ actually a little hurt by that. The room falls silent as you fail to muster a repartee. Kate seems to notice. “Uh, but it’s not like it’s your fault Max, you still managed to um… push that motor! And stuff!”  
  
You shrug, now a bit self consciously. You _are_ still feeling… not your best. It’s not like you were exactly in _peak_ physical condition in the other loops, but at least you were… able to get upstairs without needing a five minute sit-down break afterwards. God, even your protestation about being called ‘coma-girl’ was pretty weak. How did you even manage to walk here from the hospital that first night? Maybe… maybe you should do something about this.  
  
You stand up suddenly, pushing the slight burn in your calves from even _that_ action to the back of your mind. “I’m going to go for a run.” You announce.  
  
Chloe’s face immediately flips to a barely disguised panic. “Oh Max- No, no! I didn’t mean it like that, you’re looking good! _Really_!” Yup, saying ‘really!’ after a statement is one of those things that makes it clear that the statement actually _isn’t ‘really’_ whatever you’re saying it is. “I didn’t- it’s not like you need to be _buff_ or anything it’s just-”  
  
You shake your head and smile at Chloe. “No, Chlo-” You cut her off, “I didn’t mean it passive aggressively, you just kinda… you raised a good point. I’m not in good shape because of the coma, and I probably _should_ be in at least… okay shape if we’re gonna be doing cool secret hijinks.” She looks a little less panicked, but still on edge. _When else have I seen her like this?_ She closes her eyes and breathes for a moment. _Right, when I asked her about Rachel doing ‘harder drugs’… when she was talking about it being hard to support Rachel. Could responding badly to comments like that be something else she associates with Rachel?_  
  
Maybe a topic for another time. She opens her eyes again and shoots you a small smile. “Okay. Okay, cool then.” She pauses, hesitating, looking between her comfortable bed and the door. “Uh, want company?”  
  
You blink. Kate blinks. “Uh. Sure?” She nods vigorously and tosses you a pair of sweatpants, then turns away and starts pulling on a pair of her own. Both you and Kate flinch and glance at each other for a hair-raising split second, before both whipping away. You fight down a blush as you quickly undon your (Chloe’s) PJ bottoms and don the new sweatpants. They’re loose, but tugging on and tying the pull string mitigates the worst of it. Hm, they’re also… a fair bit longer than your legs. You hike them up a bit but you’re pretty sure the ankle part will still be dragging on the ground. Ah well.  
  


≅≅≅

  
You decide to take it easy to start, Chloe’s block loops around, so there’s a very basic and easy path, bit of uphill, bit of downhill. Chloe seems to mostly be along for the ride to keep you company, and you chat amicably as you walk.  
  
“So how long _have_ you and Kate known each other?”  
  
Chloe waves hesitantly at an enthusiastic looking girl with pigtails and pink streaks in her hair across the street as she answers. “We met pretty much right when the school year started for her in September.” She pops a stick of spearmint gum into her mouth. “We ran into each other at Frank’s place, I dunno _how_ she found out about him so qui-” She pauses, then sighs. “Ugh, _magic_ probably, do you think she has a pot detecting spell?”  
  
“I mean,” you start, “she did that crazy plant stuff, maybe?”  
  
“I’m glad she isn’t going into policing if she does.”  
  
You nod emphatically. “Though, that might actually help if she wasn’t corrupt, she could like, be a magic weed detector to see if other cops are planting evidence.”  
  
“As if,” Chloe snorts, “no police department is gonna let someone on the inside screw over the others like that. Cops fuckin’ love to cover each other’s asses.”  
  
“Well, I hope the ones who took away Jefferson and Co. are clean.”  
  
Chloe sighs. “That’s like wishing for a clean toilet in a public washroom.”  
  
You giggle at the crude comparison. “At least even a dirty toilet still does it’s job right.”  
  
“Ha!” Chloe barks out a laugh and looks down at you. “When did you become such an anti-authority badass, Max?”  
  
You grin, “I’ve been around a bad influence.”  
  
“Oh have you? No doubt some handsome, suave, punk-anarchist lurking in Arcadia Bay I’ve never met.”  
  
You waggle an eyebrow at her, “Nah, just some cute wannabe rocker I’ve taken under my wing.”  
  
“Oh I’m under _your_ wing? In your dreams, _Caulfield_.” You giggle and start to form a retort, but she cuts you off, “Now get running! I wanna see you do at least one lap!”  
  
After a hesitant moment you decide to let that lie and start running. _Gotta start somewhere._  
  


≅≅≅

  
Chloe keeping pace with you simply by _walking_ for your whole run wasn’t exactly… great for your morale, and you definitely feel like you’re ready to sit down and never, ever get back up again. But… it’s a start. Exercising is a hard-won habit, especially when you’ve never regularly done it… ever in your life. It’ll probably take a couple more weeks to settle in.  
  
When you finally get back, Joyce has already left for the Two Whales, but there’s a substantial breakfast waiting for you. _Oh shit, I probably should’ve eaten before I ran._ You think back to memories of vomiting after a particularly intense run in Grade 9 gym. _Or… maybe this is for the best._  
  
After collapsing into a kitchen chair and devouring your breakfast, you force yourself back upstairs. After a hesitant sniff of Rachel’s clothes you’d been wearing interchangeably for the past… five days- _ya, no, laundry time-_ you look up at Chloe. “Can I borrow another t-shirt of yours?”  
  
She stands and rolls her eyes exaggeratedly, “ _Fine_ , just another day of Max Caulfield leeching off of my generosity.” Kate giggles, rummaging through that backpack from earlier, and pulling out… a whole new outfit. Huh. Looks like her clothes too.  
  
You're snapped out of your reverie by the t-shirt that’s tossed onto your face. You barely suppress a yelp in surprise and pick it up off of yourself, shooting a glare at Chloe, then turning back to look at the shirt. _Firewalk, huh?_ You’d heard of them, they hit it big a few years ago. You’re not _huge_ on their music, but the logo _is_ pretty nice, you think it might be a Twin Peaks reference.  
  
“Oh, cool.” You say, hopefully not betraying your general lack of knowledge about them.  
  
“Oh, you know Firewalk?” Chloe asks, clearly pleased. “I actually saw them perform at the Old Mill _just_ before they really got noticed, that’s actually where I-” She pauses, and her expression falls. “Where I, uh. Met Rachel.” She’s silent for a moment, and you sneak a glance at Kate, who’s studiously focused on smoothing out the front of her sweater. Chloe perks up again after a moment, “Oh man, you should’ve seen us, there was this pair of skeevy fuckers there who got all pissed at me for _basically_ no reason, I was watching the show from the balcony and they come up behind me, this dude _smashes_ his beer bottle to make it into a shiv and all comes up and grabs me-” You frown at her dubiously. “Wha- I am not making this shit up!”  
  
You shrug. “Okay, so he grabs you?”  
  
“Yeah, and then _Rachel_ , who I didn’t even _know_ at the time who followed us upstairs yells at him to distract him, and I fucking _glass him_ with a beer bottle I had in my other hand!”  
  
“No way.”  
  
“Yes way! Seriously, God, Frank’ll tell you- I mean.” She pauses, then adds sheepishly, “He’ll also probably mention that the dude gave me a black eye for that, _and_ that he’s the one who told them to fuck off, _but still_.”  
  
“Okay, _that’s_ a little more realistic.” You grin. “Maybe we’ll get to hear about it from Frank after the races.”  
  
She slaps her forehead. “Oh shit! Right, we’re doing that, aren’t we? Damn it’s gonna be nice not having to worry about owing him anymore.”  
  
You nod, grabbing the cleaner of the pair of Rachel’s jeans and Chloe’s Firewalk shirt. “I’m gonna hop in the shower, then I think we’ll be good to head out.”  
  
“Sounds good Maximus.”  
  


≅≅≅

  
After a brief debate, you, Chloe, and Kate are once again stacked side by side into Chloe’s truck.  
  
“I _could_ do this on my own y’know.” Chloe says underneath the sound of the truck starting.  
  
“Nah, Max is right. We’re just making it harder on ourselves trying to figure this out at a distance.” Kate sighs. “Long car ride, here we go.”  
  
To be fair, the drive into Portland isn’t _that_ long, and now that you actually have _time_... it feels wrong not to use it. You spend the drive there marveling at… the news, of all things, on Chloe's phone. The world’s continuing to turn, events you’ve never seen before are happening all over. It’s all _new_.  
  
Chloe and Kate banter amicably next to you as you stay absorbed in seeing all of the new _stuff_ that’s happening.  
  
“No, dude, I feel like I’m losing my mind here-”  
  
“Kate you _have_ lost your mind if you really think a _hot dog_ is a fucking _sandwich._ ”  
  
“No, no! Have you been listening? I’m saying that, _categorically_ , compared to other sandwiches, a hot dog arguably falls _onto_ the sandwich scale, even if it isn’t _actually_ a sandwich.”  
  
“I- What? The _sandwich scale?_ What the hell are you even talking about right now?”  
  
“Like, how like a sandwich something is! Like, burgers for instance, they’re _very_ much like sandwiches so they’re pretty high up on the sandwich scale, but it’s still variable as to whether they’re _actually_ sandwiches.”  
  
“Right, okay then. What are the criteria for the sandwich scale?”  
  
“Depends who you ask, but I lean towards any food item that’s eaten in between two other of the same food item.”  
  
“I- But that’s so _broad_ , and that doesn’t even fit hot dogs! A hot dog is more like a… I don’t know, a _taco_ or something.”  
  
Kate is silent for a moment at that. Chloe glances over nervously. Suddenly the blonde haired girl murmurs, “That’s… a good point.”  
  
You see Chloe start to splutter, trying to backtrack, “Wait- No, no, no. You are _not_ gonna start arguing that-”  
  
But Kate’s talking over her, “No- No, that’s a good point Chloe, I think you’re onto something here-”  
  
The two of them ignore you as you giggle at their ridiculous discussion. You briefly consider weighing in with some kind of extra ridiculous opinion to pour more fuel on the fire, but you don’t think you’re feeling quite chaotic enough this morning.  
  


≅≅≅

  
You arrive at Portland Meadows only half an hour before the first race is due to start. The drive through the city had been, well, loud. It feels like it’s been _forever_ since you’ve been anywhere besides Arcadia Bay. Chloe seems surprisingly uncomfortable in the city traffic, and sighs with relief when you point out the parking lot you want her to aim for. Comfortably parked and having triple checked that her doors are locked, the three of you set out for the racetrack.  
  
“So what’s the plan, Max?” Chloe asks, stretching herself out as she walks.  
  
You yawn. _Early morning._ “You’ve still got your fake ID, right?” She nods. “Cool, me and Kate are your younger cousins, you’re taking us out for a day at the races.”  
  
Kate snorts next to you, “And what a strong family resemblance we all have.”  
  
You shrug, “What’re they gonna do, ask to see our family tree?”  
  
“True.”  
  
Oh right. “Before we go in, let’s grab a selfie, I figure photojumps are the safest way to play this.”  
  
They nod and both lean in- since apparently that’s something you all do now. _Click_. The two of them lean out and suddenly just _stare_ at you as the photo develops.  
  
“Uhhh… what?” You ask, kind of freaked out.  
  
They sigh and look at each other. “Still the first loop?”  
  
“Probably.”  
  
“ _Alright_ , let’s go lose some bets.”  
  
You laugh, “Don’t worry, I’ll let you know when I’m doing it all again.”  
  
The three of you make your way through the mostly empty parking lot up to the door, where a bored looking bouncer in a wrinkled button-up idly flicks the top of a zippo lighter open and closed. On your approach, he looks the three of you up and down. “All minors must be accompanied by an adult.” He intones flatly after a moment.  
  
Chloe snorts, “Where’s yours then, kiddo?” Oh man, she immediately entered full antagonistic backtalk mode.  
  
He perks up a bit at the retort, and gives her another once over, an ugly glint in his eye. “Hmph, lemme see your ID then.”  
  
She holds it out in front of him, then snatches it away at the last second as he grabs for it. He glares up at her. “Be honest, do I _really_ look like a teenager to you?” She asks with a smirk, leaning in a bit to loom over him condescendingly.  
  
He starts to answer but Chloe cuts him off, “-and you better think _real_ carefully about your answer.”  
  
He’s quiet for a moment, glaring up at Chloe, before a disbelieving smirk of his own crawls over his face. “Well, Miss Blue, if you’d like to _prove_ you’re so mature…” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. You resist the urge to gag.  
  
Chloe holds his leering gaze for a moment before snorting and leaning back. “You wish you’d get so lucky, here, check it.” She lazily tosses her ID card onto his tray, he only glances at it for a moment- _yes!_ \- before handing it back.  
  
“Heh, fine, fine. Here.” He reaches under his lectern and pulls out a purple wristband. “Hold out your hand.”  
  
“Oh, proposing already?” Chloe snarks, but holds out her hand obediently.  
  
He pulls it around and ties it tight, before palming a business card into her hand with the subtlety of a gorilla. “If you ever _do_ wanna prove somethin’...” He murmurs. Chloe clearly has to fight to not toss the card away right there.  
  
“Right,” She says blandly.  
  
You and Kate step up to the bouncer now. “Both underage?” He asks, manner back to some semblance of professionalism.  
  
A quick nod of your head, trying to play the part of a nervous younger teenager. “Hmph.” He just grunts and pulls out a pair of green wristbands. “Hands.” And ties them around both of your wrists. With one last wink at Chloe, the bouncer opens the door. “Enjoy your time at Portland Meadows.”  
  
You all sidle into the warmth gratefully. Chloe miming a gagging motion at you before the door is even closed again. You giggle and nod in agreement. _Right, we’re in_. That was the easy part, between your powers and Chloe’s backsass skills. Chloe pulls out the $200 you’d taken out from your bank account.  
  
“Ready to start?” She asks.  
  
You and Kate nod. “I’m thinking we go with the odds, to start with,” You’d done a bit of research on horse races, it was pretty rare that the horse with the best odds to win… didn’t win. It didn’t pay out much, but you have a _tentative_ plan for how you want the day to go.  
  
Chloe grins. “Sweet, all in then?”  
  
You shake your head vigorously, “No, nonono, way too much attention. Twenty dollar bets, still more than average, but could be like, someone’s birthday party or something.”  
  
She nods. “Makes sense, it’ll stretch out longer that way too.”  
  


≅≅≅

  
Chloe places your bet on the first race, and rejoins you at the stands. It’s warm, for a day in the fall, you’re all wearing light sweaters and don’t feel the need for much more.  
  
“Lady asked me if I was _sure_ I wanted to bet that much.” Chloe chuckles. “They aren’t gonna know what’s hit them.”  
  
You grin and nod, making huge bets isn’t commonplace, since for most people here gambling on the races was more of a social game than a real attempt to make money. Unfortunately for them, you _are_ here to make money.  
  
The three of you draw more than a few curious looks from others on the stands, but Chloe glaring back at a few of them quickly persuades them to look elsewhere.  
  
“Ouh, they’re starting!” Kate says, leaning forward.  
  
With a _crash_ the horse gates thunder open, and they’re off. You watch placidly as the jockeys whip their mounts with riding crops, urging them faster across the mud. _I have a feeling the horses don’t actually love that very much…_ Chloe is _right_ into it though, muttering “Come on, come on,” and other pleas for your horse to go faster.  
  
Your attention to the race falters as your brain decides to tune into a conversation going on behind you. “-time, do you think they’ll get it out before the first snowfall?”  
  
“I sure as Hell hope so, we’re payin’ their damn salaries, and it’s eating into my fuckin’ profits.”  
  
“Cool it Henry, there’s kids in front of us.”  
  
“Fuck’em, I was swearing like a sailor at their age, I’m practically a saint now.”  
  
“And I’m the Virgin Mary, I’d take a dozen forest fires over tryin’ to wash your mouth out with soap.”  
  
Aaand you tune them out again as the race gets close. Funny, but not much being said. Your horse is lagging a bit behind the leader now.  
  
“What odds do we have on this one?” You ask.  
  
“Two point four.” Chloe replies distractedly. You nod and do some mental math. Huh, this is the favourite? Those aren’t bad odds in payout terms. You told Chloe to only do straight wagers, no point getting involved with the other ones, you’re trying to strike a good balance between looking naive and inexperienced and actually getting some money.  
  
The first race goes to your horse, Chloe whoops in excitement before barreling off to collect her winnings. _Twenty dollars into forty eight dollars… maybe we can make something happen with this._ Assuming your plan works, anyway.  
  


≅≅≅

  
The rest of the day is mostly data collection, you try to memorize the winner of all ten races, and what their odds were. Luckily today seems like it was a _good_ day to do your plan. There’s two races that fit the bill _perfectly_.  
  
Finally the racing day ends, and the patrons are invited back inside for drinks. You, Chloe, and Kate stay on the bleachers though, talking quietly amongst yourselves. “So, how much did just betting the odds get us?” You ask.  
  
Chloe sighs. “Only a bit over six hundred and fifty bucks.”  
  
You nod. “I figured it wouldn’t go amazingly, we’ll need a _lot_ more than that.”  
  
Chloe shakes her head, “Some of those upsets were just insane! Are you gonna bet on those when you go back?”  
  
She looks excited for her past-self, you grin in response. “Oh yeah, they’re the crux of my _evil plan._ ”  
  
You pull out the polaroid from earlier and prepare to jump back, Kate grabs your arm though. “When you go back, tell me not to get the reuben sandwich. Something’s nasty about the corned beef.” You glance down at her sandwich with two bites out of it and shrug.  
  
“Will do. Seeya guys earlier.”  
  
They grin, “See you earlier.”  
  
For the first time since you arrived in this new version of Arcadia Bay, you stare into the photo, letting your mind slowly become aware of the threads that wrap around not just your hand, but your whole body. It takes several intense moments of concentration, they aren’t omnipresent like the feeling in your hand, you have to be actively _searching_ for them to be able to feel and manipulate them.  
  
You’ve never tried to quantify it into words, but if you tried… maybe it’s kind of like fashioning the threads into sort of a cradle? Not for your body, but for your _mind_ , it feels like you shift them from your physical self onto a more abstract idea of your ‘self.’ Then, looking at the photo, you… _tune_ the threads, sort of. Maybe they’re more like strings on a violin? At least in this context, perhaps. From the feeling, the _memory_ the photo gives you you adjust their tautness and push and pull in a way that you can’t seem to do any other time, matching the pitches and tones. Then, you let go of the sense of ‘anchoring’ that held you here, and your mind is once more flung into the past.  
  


≅≅≅

  
You blink rapidly to try to readjust your eyes to the mid-morning sun. Chloe and Kate are staring at you. Oh, right.  
  
“Yep,” you announce, “second loop.”  
  
They both grin and cheer. “Nice!” “Sweet!”  
  
“So,” Chloe continues, “You’ve got a winning plan laid out for us?”  
  
You smile back and nod, you’re _excited_. “It’s gonna be sick, trust me.”  
  
As Chloe goes through the same song and dance with the bouncer, you think about your own excitement. _I think it’s safe to classify manipulating events I know the outcomes of as a… ‘guilty pleasure.’_ The Loops cross your mind briefly. _That was… different. This feels more like that first week, the rush of adrenaline seeing something I knew was going to happen, happen. Or being able to convince someone of something using information they’d told me in another time._ You know it’s not necessarily… the more _moral_ thing to do, let alone to find enjoyment in, but…  
  
_I’m doing it in people’s best interest. No, I don’t even need that as a reason. I’m doing it for Chloe, so it’s okay_. That’s right. It’s okay if it’s for Chloe. Yeah.  
  
“Oh, and Kate?” You say as the three of you finally enter.  
  
“Mm?”  
  
“Don’t get the reuben, you told me to tell you the meat’s no good.”  
  
“Awh,” she pouts, “I was looking forward to it.”  
  
“You’ll just have to get another _sandwich_ ,” Chloe says with an exaggerated frown, “like maybe a _hot dog?_ ”  
  
Several other patrons look over as you let out a loud laugh at that, Kate herself can’t suppress a giggle either. _This is gonna be fun!_  
  


≅≅≅

  
You are not having any fun at all right now. You might have gone a _little_ overboard than what you had intended to do with the betting. But you got caught up in it! What're you supposed to do, _not_ bet the most they'll let you on who you _know_ is going to win each race?  
  
…  
  
Okay. Yeah. You definitely shouldn't have done that, in hindsight.  
  
When you’d first seen some other business-casual looking men staring at you, Chloe, and Kate, you’d assumed they were just checking out the spectacle. Punks and hipsters aren’t exactly _rare_ in Portland, but you figure they probably don’t come to the races too often.  
  
When one of those nicely dressed men took Chloe aside to talk on her way to the bookies, you thought maybe it was another creep making a move on her, and turned back to Kate, confident Chloe could handle herself.  
  
When Chloe didn’t come back after five minutes, even as the next race had been about to begin, you realized suddenly that maybe, just _maybe,_ you had been very, _very_ stupid.  
  
“ _Kate.”_ You whisper urgently. “ _I think something’s wrong._ ”  
  
She looks at you strangely. “What?”  
  
“ _Chloe’s not back, I think I saw one of those suity guys leading her away.”_  
  
Kate sighs. “Fuck.”  
  
You frown a little self-consciously and stop whispering. “Uh, so… should we go like, sneak into the back?”  
  
Her blonde hair bounces as she shrugs, “I dunno. I guess? Chloe’s always better at coming up with this kinda thing.”  
  
_Hm. Not helpful, but she’s right. Neither of us are Chloe…_  
  
“Why don’t we just go up and ask them where she is then?”  
  
Kate stares at you for a moment, then grins. “Yeah that could work, a little less confrontational, a little more ‘Max and Kate,’ right?”  
  
You hold her gaze for a moment. _I-... what?_  
  
Your confusion must be evident, she deflates and says, “Whatever, let’s go ask,” in a glum tone.  
  
Not entirely sure still what she meant by that, or why your response has her glum, you just mumble something affirmative and start leading the way.  
  
"Hey there, uh- We were wondering where your buddy took our cousin?"  
  
The two men look at each other uneasily after Kate speaks. One of them nudges the other, who grunts and starts replying. "Just checking her tickets, the House wants to make sure the teller didn't… misread them."  
  
You frown. _Yeah, right. This is hella sketchy._ Hm. _Well, I guess what we're doing is pretty sketchy too._ "Can you take us to her? We got a message from her mom we've gotta show her."  
  
The man looks at you appraisingly for a moment, taking in your scrawny frame and pair of facial scars. After that moment, he grunts again. "Fine. Cold out here anyway."  
  
You nod in agreement, suddenly feeling a lot more trepidation as he leads you past a pair of smoking sou chefs into the staff door of the establishment. _Was this a good idea?_  
  
You walk through the corridors, seeing them branch off to a couple other rooms, the kitchen, another exit, a heavy door that you assume leads to a vault of some kind, a counting room. Your guide stops at a lone door at the end of a hallway. You hear raised voices inside, one Chloe's, one deep and gravelly.  
  
The bouncer-dude that led you here suddenly looks a little sheepish as he glances between you and Kate waiting expectantly and the door emanating angry shouts. Finally he sighs and, with only one last slight hesitation, knocks.  
  
Both voices cut out, and a moment later, the gravelly one calls out more clearly. "Come in."  
  
The bouncer opens the door for you and Kate, who seems nonplussed about your trip through the horse racing establishment. _She really is… chill, I guess, about most things._  
  
You step inside, and are immediately assaulted by a gross bevy of smells, mixing cigarette smoke with stale BO. Your nose curls up instinctively. Chloe glances back at you with a wan smile, then turns back to the man behind the desk. "Jay, these are my cousins, Max and Kate. Max and Kate, this is Jay, he's _in charge_ of this establishment."  
  
'Jay' runs one hand through his jet black, greasy looking, slicked back hair and glowers at Chloe. "Didn't mention you were here with family." Oh man, you'd recognize that expression on Jay's face anywhere, Chloe has absolutely been stonewalling him for the last ten minutes.  
  
Chloe examines her fingernails, "Oh, no?" She says disinterestedly.  
  
The man grits his teeth. "Just- Ugh. Listen to me. I'm bein' more than generous, you know what- look. I'll bump it up to _seventy-five percent_ of your winnings if you just _tell me_ who the _fuck_ sold you that list."  
  
" _No-one_ sold me _any_ list, dude. I'm telling you."  
  
Jay's eyes flash with anger, but he pauses and takes a deep, ragged breath. Suddenly he looks past Chloe at you and Kate with an _incredibly_ forced smile. It's honestly physically painful just to look at. "Say, _girlies,_ you wouldn't happen to know _who_ exactly your cousin here got her betting list from?"  
  
_Hmm._ You shake your head, waiting for more pieces of the puzzle. "No, sorry dude, we were just guessing randomly."  
  
"Ya," Kate chimes in, putting a bit of valley girl into her voice for… some reason, "We're just really lucky!"  
  
You and Kate jump as Jay slams his fist into the desk with a _BANG,_ sending his cold coffee sloshing over the rim of it's mug, adding to the stains already accumulated under that spot. "Let me _tell you_ the same thing I told your _cousin._ " He leans forward over his desk, glower now fixed on you. " _Luck_ only counts in _horseshoes_ and _hand grenades._ "  
  
…  
  
You're almost a hundred percent certain that isn't how that saying goes.  
  
"And it most _certainly_ does _not_ count in _horse racing!"_  
  
_Oh. Oooooh._ Duh, you'd been treating this place like a normal gambling house, win too much and you'd get some glares, probably get asked to leave, but no more. You'd forgotten something important though. _Horse racing is like, notoriously mob adjacent, these guys have all the races fixed!_ They were probably using them to launder money or something. You don't really care, honestly, you're mostly looking for a slice off the top.  
  
Jay breathes heavily for a moment, face red. Chloe looks like she's trying not to laugh at him, and you and Kate share an impassive sidelong glance at each other, before returning to study him with overly straight faces.  
  
You can practically _see_ his ego deflate as he realises just how little an impression he's made on all three of you.  
  
_I think I get it now._ You start to ask Chloe something, but pause. This is a dead end anyway, in your estimation, may as well get some confirmation.  
  
Dropping the 'tween girl' act, you ask Jay, "So you think Chloe bought a list of who was… scheduled to win?"  
  
He grimaces, but nonetheless shoots you a tight grin. "Now you're getting it, girly." He pauses, then shifts his expression back to that overdramatic thundercloud of a look. "And don't even _think_ about going to the gambling commission with that, they're paid for." _No doubt._  
  
"Who do you think sold it?" You ask innocently.  
  
His normal glower returns now, knotting his bushy eyebrows together as he leans back and narrows his eyes. "Wouldn't you like to know, girly? Why the sudden curiosity, eh? Gettin' me a little-"  
  
You don't even bother hearing him out the rest of the way, abruptly _twisting_ back time to before you'd confirmed your thoughts on why he suspected Chloe.  
  
"Chloe?" He blinks at your sudden change of conversational partner.  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"Do you still have that card from the front door bouncer?"  
  
She makes a face. "Bleh, yeah, forgot to get rid of it."  
  
"Can I have it?"  
  
Chloe smirks at you, "Ouh~ Into _older men_ now, are we?" The way she intones both 'older' and 'men' makes it clear she's not saying which of the two she thinks is _less_ believable.  
  
You roll your eyes and snatch the card from her, give it a once over, and glance up at Jay. "Would you believe me if I told you 'Eli Bobart' sold it to her?"  
  
Jay starts to splutter as Chloe smacks her fist into her open palm. "Oh! You're pinning it on him!"  
  
Jay looks back and forth between the two of you, askance. Kate's pulled out her phone and seems to be browsing Tumblr. "Well- I obviously won't _now!!_ "  
  
"Hm," you say, "good point."  
  
_Twist._  
  
See, this kind of thing is more your speed. All that gunfighting and ambushing and tailing, it's kind of whatever, you _can_ do it, and it can even be fun, but it's not your thing. Research neither, again, you _can_ , and you've certainly had to before, but it's so _mind numbing_. This, though? This dancing through a conversation, pulling back, then letting the current drag you forward, introducing new variables and seeing how they bounce off of and collide with each other, _this_ is what Max Caulfield _does._  
  
"What if I told you it was Eli, Jay?" You ask as his ego deflates again before your eyes.  
  
"Eli?" He frowns. "Bobart? Even that bastard wouldn't be as stupid as to use his own name selling dirty info." His frown morphs into a glare. "Now I don't know what you're trying to pull, girly, or _who_ put you up to it, but-"  
  
_Twist._  
  
"Hey Jay, does that dude working door duty today, ummm… Eli? Have a nickname or something?"  
  
Jay looks momentarily put out by the sudden subject change, but sighs and sinks into his groaning chair as you say 'nickname,' rubbing his temple roughly with one hand. "Is he still-? Fuckin' clown." He sits up. "Listen, I dunno what he told you, but _no one_ here calls him 'Foxhound,' I don't even know where he comes up with this shit."  
  
_Bingo._  
  
"Okay!" You announce brightly, "I'm done here!" Chloe and Kate look over at you in surprise, Kate closing her Tumblr.  
  
You pull out your photograph from earlier, Chloe frowns. "A third loop? Sure you can't salvage this one?"  
  
Jay looks mildly irritated at the dialogue he's suddenly been excluded from. You ignore him. "Nah, they grabbed you a bit too long ago, and after ten minutes with you I think our friend _Jay_ here isn't quite as agreeable as we need him to be."  
  
She snorts. " _Please_ , I'm a natural charmer!"  
  
"Riiiight. Okay." You smirk at her and wink. "Okay, see you earlier?"  
  
They both grin at you. "See you earlier, Max."  
  
You look back at Jay, stewing behind his desk. "And see you earlier too, I suppose, Jay."  
  
"What are you-!"  
  
You tune him out as you prepare the familiar motions of a photojump. A second later…  
  
_Yoink._  
  
Not quite the same ring as ' _twist_ ', ah well.  
  
As you hurtle through spacetime, you think about your options. Now that you have a better picture of what happened in the second loop, you're much more confident in your ability to play your cards (ha, gambling lingo) such that you get away with _all_ your winnings. However… it'll leave an impression with Jay, and probably whoever his 'business associates' are too. It won't necessarily be a negative impression either, assuming your ruse works, and that… might actually scare you more.  
  
Of course, you could also just play it lower key, keep your cards close to your chest (Ha! More gambling lingo), as it were. There's no need to go quite as low as you went first loop, you can probably hit just around four thousand through the day, in much smaller increments than you worked in through the second loop. Which is no small amount for sure! Buuut it's about what you would've expected to get from one of Arcadia Bay's well used ATMs, if you had raided one, and doesn't that mean, aside from getting to spend time with Chloe and Kate, this whole day trip would have been a bit of a waste? You frown as another thought occurs to you. Chloe still owes Frank three thousand dollars, which would be three quarters of your winnings in this instance… Ugh. And you _did_ promise her you’d deal with him as soon as you could.  
  
You yawn, you've been up… oh, let's see. An hour to wake up, an hour for run and a breakfast, two hours to drive here, six hours for all the races in the first loop, another four to get to where the second loop ended… Fourteen or so hours now? Yeah, you decide with a nod of finality as you feel yourself snag on your destination. _I deserve a nap._  
  
**[] Play it low-key  
  
[] All-in, baby!**  
  


≅≅≅


	29. Chapter 29

**This Update:  
[X] Cheat horse races Pt. Two  
[X] Deal With Frank**  
 _Next Update:  
[X] Follow up on Jefferson's Arrest  
[X] Investigate Red Binders_  
  
The mid-morning sun makes you squint and rub your eyes. Ugh, getting your brain and body _this_ desynched for sleep is always annoying. Chloe and Kate are staring at you, again. You sigh. “ _Third_ loop.”  
  
“Oh, shit, what happened?” Chloe steps forward and starts to rub your back, but you shake your head.  
  
“Nothing too bad. This place is just _way_ shadier than I thought. Needed more time to prepare to deal with the dude in charge than I had for us to get the money we need.” You say, then follow it up with a yawn.  
  
Kate glances up at Eli the bouncer, flicking his lighter as per usual at the front door. “Is it going to be dangerous?”  
  
You stretch yourself out, trying to feel a bit more right in your body. “Nah, shouldn’t be if everything goes well- which it _should_ now that I know what’s going on here.” You look up at Chloe. “Chlo, pass me your phone?” She blinks, then rummages through her pocket to pull it out.  
  
You quickly type in nearly the same sequence of bets that you’d done through the second loop for Chloe, marking in two extra points on the bets. ‘Stop looking at phone here,’ when the other bouncers come to watch you three, and ‘Wake me up here before going to bet,’ at the point where Chloe was brought to Jay. You’re _trusting_ that the cause and effect will be similar enough to cause the same series of events to unfold, and you _do_ have a pretty good feel for this after two months in the same loop.  
  
You hand her phone back and say, “Alright, here’s what to bet and when, pay attention to the extra instructions, once we get inside I’m going to nap on the stands, I’m hella wiped out.”  
  
Chloe does her thing with Eli, you watch placidly as he palms her the business card. _Sorry bud, you've got a big storm coming._  
  
Not long after, you're reclining in your seat on the stands, letting the murmuring and cheering of the crowd fade into a background white noise, thankful that the still rising sun isn't hitting you straight on.  
  
"Abluh?" You say, gracefully, as Chloe shakes you awake.  
  
"It's time, sleeping beauty." She says with a grin. _There's worse ways to be woken up._  
  
"Okaaaay," you say with a yawn. You stretch yourself out and roll your shoulders. "Let's go."  
  
The three of you get up as one, and you lead the pack, heading directly towards the suits watching you instead of the door. They look at each other uneasily as you reach them.  
  
"Hey, Jay wants to speak with us?" You ask, putting as much arrogance into your tone as you can muster.  
  
"Uh," the one on the left nudges the one on the right again. "Right, yeah, he wants to speak with _her."_ He jabs one blunt finger towards Chloe.  
  
You stare him down for a moment, unflinching, _just_ long enough to make him frown, and then say, " _Us._ "  
  
The suit's silent for a moment, then he shrugs. "Alright, fine. Same to me. Cold out here anyway."  
  
You smile at him and step aside, gesturing towards the staff door before he even starts walking to it. "Would you like to lead the way?"  
  
The suit just grunts and does so. You smirk and Chloe and Kate as they watch you with wide eyes. "Watch and learn, you two," you say smarmily, and follow.  
  


≅≅≅

  
You confidently lead the others into Jay’s office, mentally prepared for the rank smell this time. Before he can speak, or even process your appearance, you start, “Jay, I was wondering when you’d finally notice.”  
  
His bushy eyebrows shoot up, and he pauses a moment to look you over before responding. “Oh? Do I _know_ you, kid?”  
  
You smile easily at him. Okay, it’s more of a smirk, you’re having a good time. “No, but I know _you_.” You plop down into the chair and cross your legs. “And, you probably noticed, I know your horse schedule too.”  
  
Jay frowns and grabs at his cold coffee, clinking his rings against the mug handle, and takes a sip. “Blech. Cold.” You nod sympathetically. He leans back in his seat, looking you over again with a new… respect? Maybe. You’ve shown you know what’s going on. “So, what? You ain’t from the Gambling Commission. You from the Seattle crews?”  
  
You smile. _Mysteriously_. You’re not actually sure what a mysterious smile looks like, so you just cock your head a bit to the side while you do it. “Who, me? Who can say, Jay. What I _can_ say is that you have a leak.”  
  
He chews his lip, and runs a hand over his stubble. _He’s not sure what to make of me. Which, I mean, I get it.Some kid with a pair of big facial scars, one of them fresh, walks into your office with 18k in winnings claiming to know about a leak._ “Alright,” he says finally, “what do you want?”  
  
You let the smile drop from your face. “My winnings Jay,” you try to look piercingly into his eyes, “all of them.”  
  
To his credit, he keeps his cool this time. “Right,” he says with a snort, “what’s a kid like you gonna do with almost twenty thousand dollars?”  
  
 _Okay, now I need to freak him out a little, time to get creative._ “... Kid?” You say speculatively, like you’re trying the word on, rolling the syllables around your tongue. “Hmm, sure. We’ll go with that, this time.” You look at him appraisingly. “I’m a contractor, Jay. Independent. Most of the time, jobs seek me out, but business has been good lately, so I’ve been out of luck.” You take one of his pens, stuff it in your pocket, then rewind time and pull it out, twirling it rapidly between your fingers. “In this case, this… _loss prevention_ job found me. I simply decided to take it on.” You stop spinning the pen and abruptly toss it down onto his desk, he glances at it once, then does a double take. You’d picked his ‘personal’ pen, it has his name, ‘Jason Dernier,’ emblazoned on it. The only one like it on his desk.  
  
His eyes dart to where the pen had sat, _directly_ to his right a moment ago. “Hmph, neat trick,” he mutters, then speaks up, “you’re a theatrical sort, huh?”  
  
 _No ‘kid’ this time, that’s good._ You shrug. “Sure.”  
  
“Who’s to say I can’t just investigate my men myself? One of’em’ll rat.”  
  
You shake your head, continuing to make this shit up as you go. “They’re working alone.”  
  
“Hmph.” He’s peeved you didn’t even give him a gendered pronoun to work with. “Eighteen thousand though, how am I supposed to justify that?”  
  
You smirk at him again now. “Imagine Jay, a dozen people, _normal_ people, all coming in here with that list. Are you going to toss them all out? What do they have to lose by going to the papers with proof of set races?” Your smirk becomes a grin. “The gambling commission might be mostly paid for, Jay, but if people don’t trust your business you’re gonna have a helluva lot harder time laundering money.”  
  
Jay frowns again, jaw clenching and unclenching, but nods once to signal his understanding. “Eighteen’s not a small bit of cash...” He glances up. “Fine, I see what you’re sayin’, you’re doing me a favour here, and just want a bit of compensation, right? Services rendered.”  
  
You shrug again and grin at him. “Maybe. Maybe I just want my rightful winnings.”  
  
He’s silent for another moment. A sigh heaves out of him as deflates, he picks up the pen you tossed in front of him and pulls out a pad of paper. You watch him carefully as he scribbles out a note, signs it, and staples it to the betting ticket in front of him, then slides it partway across the table.  
  
You begin to reach for it but he holds up a finger and covers the paper. "Ah, ah, ah." He shakes his head. "A name, first."  
  
You lean back away and cross your arms. "He didn't give us his real name, but I know this is enough for you to know who it is." You smile and pause for effect as he leans in intently.  
  
Suddenly, you let yourself giggle and grin at him. "He calls himself _Foxhound,"_ you say, making it clear how ridiculous you find the name. _I don't actually think it's thaaat dumb, but he clearly does, so…_  
  
Jay squints into the distance as he tries to place the nickname. You're worried for a moment that other-him had somehow fed you false information, but then his eyes widen. "Fuck!" He swears explosively. "God- Ugh. That fucking moron. Really?" He looks up at you. "Are you sure he said his name was… Foxhound?" He asks, making a sour face.  
  
You nod and raise an eyebrow. "Ugh, just great," he says, "completely fantastic, alright." He hesitates a moment, then slides the stapled ticket and note over to you.  
  
"You've made the right choice, Jay,” you say with a smile. Chloe takes them from you when you pass them back to her. You uncross your legs and stand, saying, “Pleasure doing business with you, I’ll leave you to deal with him… however you choose to do so.”  
  
Jay rubs his temple and leans back in his chair. “Right… thanks.” _Oh my God. I convinced this dude to give me eighteen thousand dollars and he’s thanking me for it._ Just as you’re about to cross the threshold of his office back out to the hall, he shouts, “Hold on!” You turn to look at him. _Ohshitohshitohshitohshit._ “Can I get in touch with you again?” He asks.  
  
Oh, uh. Huh. You’re… not really sure how to respond.  
  
…  
  
So you don’t. You just smile at him, and turn to go, leaving another defeated sigh in your wake. Outside, the suit guarding the door looks at you. “Big sum?” He asks.  
  
You nod, “Big sum.”  
  
“This way then, counting room.” _Men of few words._ You shrug and follow his lead, shooting a wink at Chloe once he’s ahead of you.  
  
A few moments after you leave you hear his radio crackle, Jay’s voice comes through, “Eli, my office. Dem, you’re on door duty.” The guard leading you doesn’t respond, so you figure he must not be Dem.  
  


≅≅≅

  
The process of having eighteen thousand dollars in cash doled out to you turns out to be a lot… simpler than you’d expected. You’re pretty sure it’s only because you’re being paid ‘under the table.’ You’re _pretty_ sure that it is all technically tax claimable since you have a receipt and _did_ gamble up to it with ‘real’ money from your parents… but you think you’re going to hold onto it in cash, for now.  
  
Chloe and Kate have been conspicuously silent ever since you first walked into Jay’s office. They keep it up as you leave the building with your complimentary briefcase stuffed with cash. “Ladies,” ‘Dem’ says as he tips an imaginary hat. You nod back and return to Chloe’s truck.  
  
The other two stay silent and stony-faced, to the point of freaking you out a bit. But when Chloe finally turns the corner, breaking line of sight with Portland Meadows, they both let out massive breaths and sink down into their seats.  
  
Then, Chloe snorts. You look at her sharply. On your other side, Kate starts to giggle quietly. You sigh and sink back into your seat as well as the pair of them quickly escalate into raucous laughter.  
  
“Oh-Oh my _God_ Max,” Kate says between laughs, wiping away a tear, “you sounded like a fucking- I dunno, like the _Kill Bill_ lady or something!”  
  
“That was completely insane, and you barely rewound! What was with that?” Chloe asks, still chortling.  
  
You shrug and say, “I got a read on him last loop is all, he’s _desperate_ to be like, a cool movie mob boss or something. I figured as long as I act like I’m on that level… somehow, and treat him like an equal, he’d take me seriously-” You grin at them and shake the briefcase “-Add a bit of other information I figured out from him, and, well, it sure _seems_ like it worked.”  
  
Kate’s still giggling, but you see Chloe shaking her head disbelievingly. “Eighteen _thousand_ dollars…” she says. “I never thought I’d _have_ that much money at once… let alone get it from some shady criminal dudes.” She barks out another laugh, but this one is shorter, and more… remorseful sounding. “I didn’t think I’d _ever_ be able to pay off Frank, but now just like _that_ …” She shakes her head again, carefully keeping her eyes on the road.  
  
You smile warmly at her, shifting your gears out of ‘ _manipulate everyone around me_ ’ mode. “Hey, don’t worry about it Chloe,” you say, then your smile becomes a grin, “besides, there’s still gonna be fifteen thousand left after Frank’s paid off, and you _better not_ think that’s all for _you._ ”  
  
Chloe throws her head back and laughs, before quickly looking back to the road. She’s smiling now, _actually_ smiling. Relief and laughter and, you hope, just _happiness_ all mixing into the expression that still probably feels unfamiliar on her face. Your grin settles gracefully back into a genuine smile as you watch her. Wow. You _really_ want to kiss her right now. She glances sidelong at you with a smirk, catching you staring. You blush and quickly look down into your lap. _No, I can’t force it, I can’t. I just have to be happy making her happy._ Kate is quiet next to you. You glance back up at Chloe, she’s watching the road again, short chuckles still interrupting her smile. Seeing her smile like that _does_ make it all worth it. Whether it’s staying up for fifteen hours straight or living through the same week over a dozen times, being with her and making sure she knows she’s not alone is _worth it_.  
  
“So Max,” Kate says, interrupting your train of thought, “fifteen thousand bucks, and a secret bunker we don’t have to pay rent on. Any plans on what to do with it?”  
  
Kate's looking pointedly ahead, sprawled out on her third of the seat, phone dangling loosely in her hand. Hm, you're getting a _vibe_ from her. _Probably best to ignore it for now._  
  
"I've got _some_ ideas," you start, "but I think we're really gonna need to wait and see what we actually need. For a start though, I think we need a bedroom for sure."  
  
"Bed _rooms_ ," Kate says quickly.  
  
"Um," you hesitate, "...right."  
  
Kate lets the terse silence that follows that exchange hang for a few moments before continuing. "Anyway," she says, "that reminds me… we have a couple of days to decide, but I still go to school, right?" You freeze. Oh yeah. She continues, "I could probably get away with moving out of the dorms, not like they check on us in there, but…" She sighs. "Like I said, being a witch doesn't pay the bills, even if time travel does. I do _kinda_ want my high school diploma, y'know?"  
  
Chloe snorts, but you ignore her. "I get it Kate," you say, turning to her, "we can decide tomorrow. Do you have any other thoughts on it?"  
  
She nods and says, "there's not exactly a bus service to the Dar- to our bunker, I'd need Chloe to give me rides on weekday mornings and evenings."  
  
You frown, instinctively starting to say 'No,' but you catch yourself. _Be rational, Max. I'm out of Hell Week._ Not having Chloe around- _for rides!_ \- each morning and evening for twenty to thirty minutes isn't _so_ bad, and it's probably safer for Kate to stay at the bunker. _Though I don't… think Jefferson or Nathan saw her face._  
  
"Jefferson didn't see your face the other night, right?" You ask. _Might as well make sure._  
  
Kate shakes her head and says, "No, I came in through the back door, he couldn't have known I was there."  
  
"Right." _Hm, so unless she gets spotted with us by the Prescott's goons, she should be safe. But even if she is they'd have no reason to think she's involved if we only hang out sometimes._  
  
It's a conundrum, if she gets picked up and dropped off by Chloe every day, it'll be pretty clear that she's involved with the two of you somehow, but she'll be safer when she's not at school. If she stays at the dorms, you'll get to see her less often, and you can't guarantee her safety as much, but she'll also _probably_ be in less danger overall.  
  
The expression on Kate's face shows you that she's thought about the tradeoff as well. Without prompting, she says, "Of course I'd _prefer_ to be able to hang with you guys more often, but… it's up to you Max, you're the time traveller." She smirks as she finishes.  
  
You roll your eyes and sardonically ask, "Why do I feel like I'm going to be hearing that more and more when one of you two doesn't want to make a decision?"  
  
Chloe chuckles at that. "I don't mind driving Kate," she says, "I guess I get the high school thing, but I'd totally rather she live with us." She glances sideways at Kate, "I still have no clue what kinda magic shit you can do, but something about having an in-house witch sounds nice."  
  
Kate giggles. "I can't make the brooms get up and sweep the bunker themselves if that's what you're hoping. Whether I'm there or not you'll have to keep it clean."  
  
"That's not what-!" Chloe starts to protest.  
  
"Mmmmhmmmmm?" You interrupt her.  
  
She pauses, then grins sheepishly. "Okay, the thought _had_ crossed my mind."  
  
You and Kate both laugh, you turn to find her- smiling warmly at _you_? She abruptly breaks eye contact and looks out her side's passenger window, still giggling. _I… don't get her._  
  
You wince as your stomach growls loudly. _At least the photojump desync doesn't apply to thinking I'm full too._  
  
Chloe rolls her eyes, "Ya, ya, we'll feed you soon, fast food or wait till we get home?"  
  
"Hmm, how about we wait?" You ask. "Oh yeah, we… should stop at a hardware store on the way too."  
  
"What for?"  
  
You frown and gently say, "Bolt cutters?"  
  
"Ah," Chloe says, and her smile drops. "Right." Silence for a minute, then Chloe clicks on the radio and plugs in that cigarette lighter device. With forced brightness, she says, "Hey, Kate, turn on your bluetooth and put on that whiny sounding yelly folk dude."  
  
"I- What? _The Mountain Goats?_ " Kate responds incredulously.  
  
"Ha! So you admit he sounds whiny!"  
  
"Well, _yeah,_ but that's part of his charm!" Kate protests.  
  
Chloe shrugs, surprisingly self consciously. "Well… I'm the one who asked you to put him on, right?"  
  
"Huh, true."  
  
 _"BLUETOOTH CONNECTED,"_ an Australian accented voice thunders through the truck as Chloe frantically turns down the volume. A second later, a reedy voice starts singing a cover of a popular '90s song.  
  
[ _I have a new life_](https://youtu.be/-vR1hCMMZLs)  
  
You look out the front window, relaxed, watching the Oregon landscape fly by.  
  
 _You would hardly recognize me, I'm so glad._  
  
To your left, Chloe taps the beat unconsciously against the steering wheel.  
  
 _How could a person like me care for you._  
  
You look to your right. Kate is staring at you. _Intently._ Not unkindly, but unerringly. You blink, but she doesn't stop, either uncaring or too absorbed in her thoughts. You shift your eyes away awkwardly.  
  
 _Why do I bother, when you're not the one for me?_  
  
The rest of the drive back to the Bay is quiet, punctuated only by Kate occasionally singing along.  
  


≅≅≅

  
Well, _almost_ the rest of the drive. You'd fallen asleep again, and were napping peacefully in between Chloe and Kate's quiet chatting when a blaring _HONK HONK_ had rocked you from your sleep.  
  
"Abluh?!" You shout again, as gracefully as ever.  
  
" _Shiiiiit_ ," Chloe groans, "it's Frank."  
  
"Ah, uh, right," you say blearily, and heave the briefcase onto your lap. _Clickclick_ go the clasps. Ouh. That was satisfying. You lock them again, then… _Clickclick._  
  
"Uh, Max?" Chloe says, "a bit of urgency, please?" She's signalling to the right like she intends to pull over, but hasn't actually made a move yet. _HONK._  
  
"Ah, right," you say. You turn to Kate. "Could you count out seventy five twenties?"  
  
She nods and grabs a wad, then rapidly starts counting them out. "Pull over, Chloe," you say. She nods and does so as you start counting out the other seventy five.  
  
By the time you and Kate have counted and double-checked the money, Chloe's pulled over on the side of the road into Arcadia Bay. You'd expected Frank to barrel out of his RV by now, but he hasn't. You mention as much to Chloe.  
  
"Nah," she says, shaking her head, "last time he did that I just drove off before he could get to me." You stare at her.  
  
"Still amazes me that you still have both your knees with the stuff you pull with him," Kate remarks.  
  
Chloe snorts. "He wouldn't do that to me, Frank's not totally heartless."  
  
Chloe's phone buzzes. "Three guesses what that says!" Chloe groans.  
  
You pick up her phone and glance at the message.  
  
 _Drug Bitch 4:17  
come to the rv. now._  
  
Chloe sighs as you relay the message, but perks up when you reveal the hundred and fifty twenty dollar bills clenched in your hand. "Shall we then?" She asks, grinning.  
  
You nod and smile at her, then Kate. The three of you shuffle out of the truck and make your way to Frank's RV. You hear Pompidou losing his damn _mind_ barking as you approach. _Good dog!_ Aaaand _now_ Frank chooses to barrel out of his RV into the orange afternoon light.  
  
"Pompidou, stay!" His gruff voice calls, and then he throws open the door and staggers out.  
  
"Well, well, well. Imagine running into _you_ out here Chloe," he says, leaning faux-casually against his RV. He leans in a bit, squinting as he take in you and Kate, "Oh, you brought friends?" He asks.  
  
"These two? Nah, minions."  
  
Frank starts to chuckle but cuts himself off. "Right, none of that, Chloe-" he pauses again, looking closer at Kate, "-oh, so you two _did_ meet."  
  
"What?" Kate asks.  
  
He snorts and replies, "What, did you think I'd be _that_ sloppy that I'd schedule you two's… _appointments_ so close together that you'd run into each other by _accident?_ " He shakes his head. "If I were that sloppy, I'd be dead."  
  
"Riiiiiight," Chloe says, eyebrows raised, sharing a look with Kate. "Aaaanyway, I've got your money."  
  
"You-!" He starts angrily, then processes what Chloe said. "You… do?" Chloe nods with a smirk, then steps back, allowing you to step forward.  
  
"Three thousand dollars," you say, "in the form of a hundred and fifty twenty dollar bills." You hold out the wad of cash, which he quickly snatches from your grip.  
  
"And who are you supposed to be?" He asks you, eyeing the money warily.  
  
"No-one," you reply with a modest shrug.  
  
Frank frowns. "Right, _great_ answer."  
  
You all stand quietly as he counts the money once, then twice, then a third time. He lets out an explosive breath. "Where the hell did you get this, Chloe?" He demands suddenly, stepping towards her.  
  
"Loan it from a bank?"  
  
"No-"  
  
"From someone shadier than me?"  
  
"No, Frank-"  
  
" _Steal it?_ "  
  
" _Frank!"_ You near-shout, interrupting their back and forth. He throws his stare around to bore into you. "She won it. No, _we_ won it."  
  
"Won? Gambling?"  
  
You nod. "Horse racing," you confirm.  
  
His eyebrows knit together as he frowns. " _Horse racing?_ Where?"  
  
"Portland Meadows," Kate supplies.  
  
" _Portland Meadows?_ " He repeats. "Jesus Christ Chloe, you got involved with _them_? How much did you win? Just three grand?" Chloe starts to respond, but he shakes his head and cuts her off. "No, you wouldn't be giving it to me if this was everything." He looks at her intently, more seriously this time. "Chloe, if you got on their bad side I can't do _shit_ for you, I can't bail you out like I did with the-" He lowers his voice and leans in "- _with the Damon business._ "  
  
You expect a snappy retort, but… Chloe just nods slowly. "It's… okay, Frank," she says, almost _gently_ , "you won't have to."  
  
What. What are you seeing right now? Both of them are gazing into the middle distance past each other. Are Chloe and Frank having… a _moment?  
  
Come to think of it…_ You rack your brain. _No… I don't remember Chloe mentioning any 'Damon business,' like, ever. What's this about?_  
  
"Anyway," Frank starts gruffly, moment apparently over, "it's good that you finally paid me back. Ain't good to let debts stand."  
  
"So we're good?" Chloe asks.  
  
"Yes, Chloe," he responds after a pause, "ya, we're good. My services are open to you again."  
  
She snorts, "You were selling to me anyway."  
  
" _Watch it,"_ Frank says, _almost_ threateningly, but you can tell his heart's not in it. You and Kate both chuckle at him. He sighs. "At least if you got it from the Meadows, it's _technically_ clean. Bank should let you deposit it as long as you show off your receipt."  
  
 _This guy just can't help but be helpful._ "Thanks Frank," you say earnestly. _I'm glad I don't have to shoot him this time._  
  
He grunts in response. "Whatever, now scram. Pompidou needs a new collar," he says, flipping through the wad of bills. "Pompidou, stay!" He barks into his RV, then jumps in quickly, leaving the three of you outside. A moment later, the RV starts up, and without so much as a wave he drives off.  
  
"That went well," you say mildly.  
  
"Hell yeah it did!" Chloe whoops and pulls you into a warm hug that you gratefully accept. "Thanks Max…" She says quietly into the top of your head.  
  
"No problem…" you mumble, voice muffled by her chest.  
  
Eventually she lets you go with a brief ruffle of your frizzy hair. You glance at Kate. Her brow is knit, but she seems to… come to a decision, maybe? And smiles warmly at both of you. "Let's get back in the truck now? I'm cold." She says.  
  
You and Chloe chuckle self consciously. "Let's go," Chloe says.  
  
Kate resumes [her music](https://youtu.be/5dvijk6G7QU) as you drive back into Arcadia Bay.  
  


≅≅≅


End file.
